


the winged beast

by onceuponamirror



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: (kinda), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Explicit discussion of heavy drugs, F/M, Gen, Jason Blossom is Alive, Minor Character Death, Multi, Rating May Change, Self-Harm, Serpent AU, and TWISTS, and a stupid amount of PLOT, demisexual jughead, hope you kids like ANGST
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-17
Updated: 2018-05-07
Packaged: 2018-11-01 14:53:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 63,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10924140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onceuponamirror/pseuds/onceuponamirror
Summary: This is how the world ends, she thinks. Not with a bang but a motorcycle.





	1. Chapter 1

  



	2. Chapter 2

**PROLOGUE**

.

.

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The butterfly theory maintains two principles: one, that if butterfly flaps its wings in Brazil, six weeks later, a tornado will tear across Texas. Two, the butterfly itself is not causation, but the consequence.

A man at an impasse makes a hard call and the winged beast flies. Years later, a boy is twelve years old and he falls off his bike, breaking three ribs. He’s in the hospital for days and when he returns, everything has changed.

The butterfly does not intend to create a tornado, nor will it ever realize that it has.

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**SEPTEMBER**

_It’s just another day,_  
_Slippin’ into stockings,_  
_Steppin’ into shoes,_  
_Dippin’ in the pocket of her raincoat,_

_It’s just another day—_

10-2-01. _Click_.

 _At the office where the papers grow she takes a break,_  
_Drinks another coffee and she finds it hard to stay awake,_

_It’s just another day—_

Absentmindedly, she hums along to the song buzzing in her headphones as she fiddles with her jammed locker. “It’s just another day,” she mutters along under her breath, dryly aware of the irony Spotify has bestowed upon her. _Fitting_.

Finally, after a firm yank, her locker gives. She makes a mental note to bring some oil tomorrow to loosen the metal, it having gone a little rusty without use over the summer; far be it from her to trust the school’s janitor with anything other than lurking around corridors. 

Heaving her backpack to one shoulder to deposit the textbooks she won’t need until later periods, Betty runs through her list of classes one last time, mumbling to herself about already mixing up the schedule of AP Calc and AP Bio.

And then, glancing around over her shoulder, Betty withdraws the carefully folded clipping she’d hidden in her AP History textbook. There’s no need for such espionage at school, which lays beyond the proximity of her mother’s eagle eyes, but she still feels an inkling of nerves.

DRUG OVERDOSE EPIDEMIC SPREADS ON THE SOUTH SIDE, the headline reads in small, dark letters. It’d been crammed into a byline, barely discernible under the front-page story about the Twilight Drive in closing later in the month.

Betty slips it into the binder she’s designated for the school newspaper, and hesitates with whether or not to keep her extracurricular binders on her person. Besides the Blue & Gold, she already has pep rallies to plan and cheerleading routines to double check, and her backpack is straining with the weight, but she’ll manage. 

She won’t really be able to look over them until lunch at least, but she might not have time to run back to her locker before then because the tour might—

Betty curses, checking the time on her phone. Cheryl has sent her another flurry of reminders about the routines, but she ignores it. _The tour_. _Damn it._ A flutter of panic blooms in her chest when she sees she’s running late, immediately kicking herself.

 _Ah, it's just another day,_  
_Choo choo choo, choo choo choo,_  
_It's just anoth—_

She rips the headphones from her ears as she turns the last corner, where Principal Weatherbee is already waiting for her. His mouth is set into its usual thin line. A girl with shoulder-length black hair and a gleaming set of pearls is standing beside him in the doorway, her dark eyes warm with recognition when they land on Betty.

“Miss Cooper, thank you for joining us,” he greets, lips lifting in a wan smile. His tone is warning, even though she’s not even two minutes late. “Betty, this is Veronica Lodge.” Veronica offers her hand to Betty with poise, even though they’ve already met last night at the diner.

Weatherbee, frowning again, impatiently gestures beyond the doorway at someone. “And, transferring to us from Southside is—” Weatherbee checks the slip of paper in his hands, as if sure he’s read it wrong. “Jug-head Jones?”

A dark haired boy in a thick black motorcycle jacket falls into the doorway, his arms stretched over his head and fingers gripping the top of the frame. He’s good looking, with downturned lips and a starry assembly of freckles, but dressed in all black and leaning devil may care, he seems to practically be a stock photo of trouble.

Blasé would be the most appropriate word for his expression, but when his gray eyes land on her, they narrow. Betty’s narrow right back; there’s something vaguely familiar about him.

Weatherbee turns to him. “Jughead? Is that right?”

The boy’s eyes drawl back over to Weatherbee. “As luck would have it,” he says by way of reply. His voice is low and dry. He glances back to Betty, and she realizes she’s been staring. He fixes her with a curious, studying look, then, with a world-weary sigh, turns his attention to the ceiling.

The obvious dismissal brings her crashing back into the moment. Betty flexes her fingers and blinks back to Weatherbee and Veronica, who is watching her raptly. Betty can’t tell if it’s just the shape of Veronica’s eyebrows that make her look perennially curious, but she decides to ignore the questioning look all the same.

“Thank you for agreeing to give tours today. We know you already have a busy schedule and we appreciate you making the time to be a peer counselor,” Weatherbee says, though his gaze is on Jughead, eying him with little attempt at concealing his disdain.

“It’s not a problem, sir,” Betty chirps. She glances between Veronica and Jughead. “Shall we?”

Veronica joins her at her side, while Jughead trails behind a step or two. He’s deliberately dragging his feet, but she can feel his body heat at her back all the same and it’s distracting. With a concerted effort, she gives Veronica her full attention.

“So, I usually like to start my tours with a little history. Riverdale High was founded in 1939 by—”

“Betty,” Veronica interrupts, her tone kind, but simpering. “Running the risk of sounding scandalously rude, honestly, I don’t care about attempts at art deco architecture in suburbia. Really. I’m much more interested a crash course in the social hierarchies here in Riverdale. Who throws the best parties, which bars don’t card, which boys to avoid…” She pauses, throwing Betty a calculating look. “By the way, I’m sorry if I interrupted your date last night.”

There’s a noisy exhale from Jughead behind them, but Betty keeps her eyes on Veronica. She laughs. “Oh, at Pop’s? That wasn’t a date.”

Veronica comically perks up. “So, that wasn’t your boyfriend?”

Betty raises an eyebrow, but smiles knowingly at her terrible attempt at sounding casual. “No, we’re just friends.”

“Oh! Good. Then...do you mind putting in a good word for me? I’ve had every flavor of boy except orange.”

A year ago, the thought of competing with a girl like Veronica Lodge for Archie’s affections would’ve sent her into a tailspin, but after Cheryl had cornered her in a Vixen initiation to grab her childhood crush by the reins and pull him into a closet at one of her parties, reality had caught up with her.

It’d been fumbling and awkward and they both agreed it hadn’t felt right. Archie had been a fantasy, and she needed to treat him like a person.

So Betty says _sure_ , and invites Veronica to lunch later, where Archie will inevitably appear.

“Making plans without me?” A voice from behind a locker sounds, and a moment later, Kevin Keller’s head appears. He takes in Veronica’s Birkin bag with wide, appreciative eyes and sidles a little closer. 

“Kevin, this is Veronica Lodge; she just moved here from New York. And this is Jughead Jones. He transferred from Southside,” she adds, gesturing behind her.

“Nice to meet you,” Kevin says, shaking the elegant hand that Veronica once again offers. He looks interested, but appears to be deliberately avoiding Jughead. Whether or not that’s out of interest in the aforementioned Birkin, Betty isn’t sure. “Lodge? Is it true what they—”

Betty’s eyes widen warningly, and luckily, Kevin seems to catch himself. But it’s too late. Veronica pinches her lips together, her mood visibly darkening. Awkwardly, and without any other play, Kevin pivots to Jughead, his lips pulled back in an uncomfortable smile. “Uh, hi Jughead.”

Jughead nods once. “Keller,” he greets coolly in return.

Kevin’s attempt at a smile drops and he stares at him, unblinking, as if he’s just smelled something foul. Betty frowns; she hadn’t given Kevin’s full name. She shoots Kevin a questioning look, but his nostrils flare in response, in the way they only do when he’s suppressing a thought.

“Right,” Kevin says curtly, turning back to the girls. “Well, I should go. Betty, Veronica, see you at lunch?” His eyes flash, but without waiting for her reply, he marches off. Betty stares at the back of him; it’s unlike Kevin to have resisted the urge to needle for gossip, and Veronica is a walking headline.

She catches Jughead rolling his eyes, but before she can investigate the thought further, Veronica is clearing her throat and crossing her arms. “Does everyone know? About my father?”

“Yeah,” Jughead replies dryly, even though the question clearly wasn’t directed at him. “Even I know about the dark dealings of one Talented Mr. Lodge.”

Veronica’s arms drop to her sides indignantly. “Okay, who even are you?”

Jughead releases a long-suffering sigh. “Listen, Holly Golightly, I’m not the one you need to worry about.” He nods at Betty. “Thanks for the tour. I think I can find my way from here. See you around.” And with that, he sweeps off in the opposite direction of Kevin.

“What the hell was that?” Veronica scoffs, her bracelets jangling as she lifts an annoyed hand after him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I’m sure it was nothing,” Betty says, reluctantly pulling her eyes away from the corner he’s just disappeared around.

“Well, I don’t have the time for the pedestrian melodrama of a wannabe greaser, anyway,” Veronica says primly. A composed smile tugs at her lips, and she links her arm with Betty’s. “So. Tell me more about this Archie.”

.

.

.

After dropping Veronica off at her first class, Betty heads for the English wing, where the offices for the school newspaper are situated. She could go to her own class, but having signed up to give peer tours, she’s already been excused and she’d rather take the remaining forty minutes of the period to start her first layout for the paper. She also has to boot up the ancient computers, dust off the shelves, and probably about a dozen other things.

The list is running rampant in her mind as she shoulders her way through the door, but once she takes her first step into the dimly lit room, her mind clears.

A yellow beam of warm light settles across the wall, specks of golden dust caught swirling aimlessly in the light. The room is musty, the scent of aged paper and wood rot hanging thickly in the air; yet, Betty finds the smell oddly comforting, like settling into an old armchair.

Betty flicks on the overhead light and sets to work. She sweeps the floor, runs a cloth along the dirty computer screens, and peaks into the old filing cabinets, coughing when that releases a stream of dust straight into her lungs. After about fifteen minutes, the room is as about as clean as it’ll get with just a broom and rag, so she moves onto her outline.

She finds an old corkboard resting behind one of the desks and heaves it out, leaning it against the wall. From her binder, she pulls the clipping she’d made this morning and the rest she’s been collecting all summer. After assembling the wall of headlines, she takes a moment to review it. Now that she’s seeing it all together, it feels obviously connected, though she’s not sure where to begin on how.

It feels more like something seen on TV than would exist in an actual investigation, but she can’t resist the urge to get some red string and start mapping the points of connection. The art room is just down the hall, so she decides to slip in and grab some red yarn from their supply closet.

When she returns, the room isn’t empty.

The dark-haired boy from earlier— _Jughead_ , she thinks, not a name she’d easily forget—is standing in front of her corkboard, arms crossed. He must hear her enter, because he jumps, eyes wide when he turns around.

His cheeks are tinged, but he quickly schools his features. “Sorry,” he offers. “I was walking by and…the door was open.”

“It’s okay.” Betty steps up beside him, her eyes running over the headline with the largest typeface; 2 MOTORCYCLISTS DEAD AFTER HIT AND RUN glares back at her.

He gestures back to the corkboard. “What is this?”

“Oh,” Betty falters, her face now burning. “It’s…well, I’m not sure what it is yet.”

Jughead gives her a look that sits somewhere in between encouragement and skepticism, but nevertheless, it prompts her onward.

“Lately I’ve been feeling like…something’s going on in this town,” she says quietly, eyes on the floor. It feels liberating to say it out loud for the first time, clouded as it still all seems. “Something’s changed. Something people pretend they don’t see. All these overdoses, hit and runs, bricks going through windows…”

He holds her gaze for a long moment before drawing his lip between his teeth. “You think they’re connected?” He says, his tone careful, almost challenging, like he’s testing her.

She nods. “I do. That’s why I’m starting up the school paper again. Someone needs to do something about it. Whatever’s going on, I want to know.”

“What if you don’t like what you find?” Jughead asks quietly.

Her eyes run over the clippings like headlights bending over the road. She exhales. “I suspect I won’t. But I’d rather know the truth.”

He hums something under his breath and twists away, meandering through the rest of the room. His eyes wander over the walls. He picks up a paperweight and juggles it between his hands, wearing a firmly impassive expression—but after a moment, Betty realizes he’s lingering.

“If you’re interested, you could…join the paper?” Betty ventures hopefully, clasping her hands together. “I’ve only talked to a couple of students so far, and I think we’ll be a small operation, though I haven’t heard back from the office about our final budget yet—”

“Betty,” he interrupts her rambling with a silencing hand. “It is Betty, right?” She nods. His tongue is digging into his cheek in a poor attempt to stave off his amusement. “Thanks for the offer, but extracurriculars aren’t really my thing.”

She takes a breath and decides to chance a curiosity. “Jughead, why did you transfer from Southside?”

“I’m protesting the last few vestiges left from my lack of legal agency,” he says automatically. It sounds rehearsed. “My dad made me,” he adds, at her look.

“Let me guess, Southside wasn’t challenging you enough academically?” Jughead looks surprised. “No offense,” she clarifies quickly. “But…objectively, Riverdale does have a stronger letter grade. Joining the Blue & Gold would be a great way to pad your college applications.”

He finds a spot on the floor to stare at, and she wonders if she’d misread offense for embarrassment. After a moment, he looks back at the wall of newspaper clippings thoughtfully.

“Like I said, it’s just not my thing,” he says with a shrug.

Betty opens her mouth, though she’s not sure to say what, but the bell suddenly tolls loudly between them. Jughead shoots her one last studying look, and then slips away without another word.

.

.

.

“Betty! I’ve been looking all over for—oh, hi Veronica,” Archie practically throws himself onto the bench, his books making a loud _thud_ as he unceremoniously drops them on the lunch table. Once he notices Veronica, however, he’s all smiles. “It’s nice to see you again. How are you doing?”

For her part, Betty notices Veronica sit up straighter. “Hello Archie,” she demurs.

Betty’s eyes flit between the two for a long moment before clearing her throat, abandoning the premise for subtlety, if they’re going to as well. 

“Oh, right,” Archie says, shaking his head slightly. “Betty, did you give a tour to a new guy this morning? Dark hair, kind of…frowny?”

Betty nods, taking a long sip from her orange juice. Next to Archie, Kevin makes an almost indiscernible noise, but otherwise keeps his attention on his twitter feed. She narrows her eyes at him, filing the moment away for later. She turns back to Archie. “Do you know him?”

He opens his mouth once, then closes it. “Kind of. Why? Did he say something?”

Veronica laughs melodiously. “He said about three words, two of which were cryptic threats, and then sulked off like some off-brand prince of darkness.”

Archie turns to Betty for confirmation; she shrugs. “I mean, well, yeah. That’s one way of putting it.”

“Well, what’s he doing here?” He presses, without much finesse. She raises her eyebrows; Archie Andrews has always been known for two things: an inability to lie successfully, and a complete and utter lack of tact, but she can’t for the life of her understand why he is choosing this hill to die on. 

Betty blinks. “School, I’d guess? He transferred from Southside.”

Archie still looks dumbfounded, or perhaps a little unsettled, but after a thoughtful moment, drops the matter. The conversation turns to football tryouts for Archie, which seems to impress Veronica, and the school play Kevin gets to direct this semester.

“I mean, _Wicked_ , of course, is amazing, but _Spring Awakening_ is so powerful,” Kevin is saying.

Veronica nods seriously. “When I saw _Spring Awakening_ last year in New York, it took my breath away. A tale of tragic love lost to conservative social pressures of the time. Could it be more current? Still, it’s a far more scandalous choice for a suburban high school production. There could be backlash.”

“Do _Wicked_ then,” Archie chimes in, though he clearly has no idea what either of the plays are about. “It’s a safe bet.”

“Betty, thoughts?”

She shakes her head to clear her mind, blinking the moment away. “Sorry? Oh, plays. Do _Spring Awakening_. Who cares about backlash? I think this town could use a little honesty.”

Kevin looks suspicious, but impressed. “Betty Cooper, taking no prisoners,” he muses, grinning wryly. “I guess someone had an interesting summer.”

She opens her mouth to say something that will inevitably take her those two steps back, but a curtain of red hair falling over her eyes interrupts her.

“Riddle me this,” Cheryl Blossom snaps, slapping her hand down in front of Betty. “Two blondes, two phones, zero calls. Have the Coopers sunk _so_ beyond middle class that your parents can no longer afford a family phone plan?”

“What’s wrong, Cheryl?” Betty sighs, giving herself a moment to compose herself before meeting Cheryl’s eyes, which are positively livid.

“What’s _wrong_ is that your jezebel sister won’t pick up her phone, I can’t find her anywhere, and I’ve been texting you all morning about drawing up the new routines. We have _tryouts_ today, Betty,” Cheryl reminds her coldly.

Betty quietly exchanges an exasperated look with Kevin and, under the table, digs her finger nails into her palm. The prick of pain instantly brings her heart rate down, familiar and sickly sweet. And then she raises her neck to meet Cheryl’s cold gaze once more. “Cheryl, the printouts have been ready for days and they’re in my locker now. Polly is sick with mono, and I don’t know why she didn’t tell you that. I know she’s sorry to miss tryouts.”

“She’s my second in command, she can’t miss tryouts,” Cheryl hisses.

"Well, I'm sorry," Betty mumbles, unsure what else to say. Polly had been so sick this morning, she wouldn’t even leave her room for breakfast. 

Cheryl inhales sharply, still looking murderous, but then, spotting Veronica, her edges smooth out almost instantaneously. “Speaking of which. Veronica Lodge, right? I’ve heard whisperings. I’m Cheryl Blossom.”

Veronica tucks a few fingers under her chin, appraising Cheryl. Her eyes flick to Betty once, and then back. “Pleasure.”

“Well, Veronica, let me formally invite you to try out for the River Vixens,” Cheryl says, adjusting her stance against the table. “You absolutely must. We seek to have the best and brightest in our allocates, and I’ve heard good rumblings.”

“At Spence I was at the top of the food chain,” Veronica says with a lift of one shoulder. “So, I’m in.”

“Lovely,” Cheryl intones, though her smile doesn’t quite meet her eyes. “Betty here can give you all the details. And, Betty, darling,” she adds, voice chilling, “ _answer_ your phone when I text you. You’re already on very thin ice. And tell Polly to call me. Immediately. I don’t care if she has the bubonic plague, I need to talk to her.”

With a swish of her hair, Cheryl storms off. The instant she’s out of earshot, Archie mumbles, “Man, she’s scary.”

“And that was Cheryl-lite,” Kevin says, though frankly, Betty thinks he’s got the excited look in his eye that he only gets when he’s watching someone on _Survivor_ get voted off.

“I’ve seen worse.” Veronica hums; an odd pinch is nestled between her eyebrows. “Betty, you didn’t tell me you were a cheerleader!”

Betty scoffs. “I’m barely one. I only got to be on the squad because my sister Polly is dating Cheryl’s brother. I’m basically Cheryl’s intern.”

“Seriously,” Kevin agrees. “You draw up all the routines, book their practice times, make sure she’s supplied with a kale smoothie before a game…”

“Oh my god, why?” Veronica blurts out. “I mean, no offense, but come on. Betty. Cruel and unusual punishment is outlawed in the greater fifty states for a reason.”

“It’ll look really good on my college applications, alright?” Betty frowns, feeling like Veronica is being awfully presumptuous for a person she’s just met. Even Kevin has little right to be indignant on her behalf when he’s ready to get the popcorn out every time Cheryl walks by. “Cheryl is graduating this year. I just have to make it till then, and it’s not a big deal.”

 _It’s not a big deal_. With her plans to restart the Blue  & Gold newspaper, it’ll be a little tougher to balance things, but she’ll manage. She always does.

She runs one finger along the crescent moons hidden away in her palm.

.

.

.

After school, Betty crosses paths with Jughead on his way to the parking lot. She’s changed into her Vixen uniform for tryouts, and the look he gives her is halfway between amused and something else entirely. “You’re a cheerleader. Why am I not surprised?” He says, running his eyes up and down her figure.

Betty cocks her neck. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

He raises an eyebrow. “Well, the perky blonde with a ponytail. It’s all very Sandra Dee, isn’t it?”

“Stones and glass houses, Danny Zuko,” she mutters, staring at his motorcycle jacket. He follows her line of sight and chuckles.

She hadn’t meant it to sound flirtatious, but it’s hard not to when comparing themselves to an iconic film couple. She flushes, and thinks the tips of his ears might’ve gone red too, but he’s suddenly found something more interesting to stare at over his shoulder.

“Um, listen. I thought about your offer. What…exactly would being on the paper entail?”

“You seem like the kind of person who’s read _In Cold Blood_ ,” Betty guesses, and at the way his lips twitch, she assumes she’s correct. “Well, the book started as a series of articles, right? I’m hoping to get some people to follow that vein. Investigate. Report.”

“Would I have complete creative freedom?” He asks, in a tone that suggests that he may already know the answer.

“Well…I’d edit,” she says, with controlled innocence and smiling up at him. “And help, and give you feedback.”

“Right,” he chuckles. “You’re not a very good liar, blondie, but…I’m in.”

She clasps her hands together under her chin. “Yay! You won’t regret it.”

“In my experience, that phrase usually bodes for the opposite,” he sighs, looking halfheartedly resigned.

They make plans to meet in the Blue & Gold office later in the week to start mapping out their first issue before parting ways; she watches him cut across the parking lot and head straight for a dark motorcycle. She raises her eyebrows to herself; she’d been wondering if the leather jacket had just been for show.

“Jughead!” She yells, and he glances back. “Why’d you change your mind?”

“You’re not the only one looking for answers,” he calls, swinging a long leg over his bike. He disappears behind a black helmet. And then he’s gone.

.

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.

.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Somehow, I am writing a full, multi-chapter Bughead fic. Don't ask me how, don't ask me why. I can't explain it. 
> 
> I wanted to write a quick and sweet Jughead Serpent!AU because that finale fucked me up but then I started building a backstory for why he'd be a Serpent and this little oneshot became a real beast. Like, why. Why did I do this to myself. Just y'all fucking wait.
> 
> This story is half canon divergence, and half speculation for season 2. 
> 
> It should be approximately about 12 chapters, and the first 4 have already been written, so updates should come fairly quickly. Please R and R, because I'm new to Bughead and feeling nervous. 
> 
> Also, big big thanks to my beta raptorlily who allowed me to word vomit all over her. Song at the beginning is Another Day by Paul McCartney.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as a note, from hereon out, there will frank and explicit discussion about heavy drug use and overdoses. i've done a lot of research on these topics (as they unfold as part of the primary plot) and i hope to have done it justice. 
> 
> it ramps up more in later chapters, but thought i'd make a warning at the gate.

Routines settle in like an old frenemy.

Betty’s first few weeks back become a series of checklists; morning run, shower, check on Polly, whose symptoms seems to have worsened, classes, lunch, babysitting the hormones of Archie and Veronica, working an hour in the attendance office during her free period, putting calls into caterers for homecoming, Vixen practice, and then, finally, sprinting back across campus to meet Jughead at the Blue & Gold.

She hadn’t been quite sure what to make of him initially—all brooding scowls and raw edges and a livewire that cuts through her whenever he looks her way—but the more she gets to know him, the more he softens at the corners.

She learns he loves film after she catches him watching _Kill Bill_ in the newspaper office, and is surprised when he invites her to finish it with him. He spends the whole time pointing out his favorite parts and sharing behind the scenes tidbits, not noticing that Betty has been watching him talk more than watching the movie.

She learns he has a little sister, who lives with their mom in Ohio. He lets it slip accidentally and seems mortified to have brought it up, but after Betty shares the way it feels when her parents are constantly fighting, he mentions it was a relief to not have to live with that turbulence anymore. Not that he thinks Betty’s parents will separate, he’s quick to add.

She learns he’s sarcastic and dry and seems to get a special kind of joy out of teasing her about the collection of _Nancy Drew_ novels she’d brought to the office for sleuthing inspiration, and _especially_ the hand-written fanfiction he’d found stashed away in one of them.

But he burns red when he sees her copy of _The Secret of O_ and Betty finds that she gets an equal pleasure in making him blush.

She’s barely known him 3 weeks, but she sees him every day now. She finds herself following the line of his lips when he’s talking and the crease at his eyes when he’s thinking and she recognizes this kind of flutter in her chest despite herself.

She tries to squash the concept immediately. The idea of Jughead liking her in _that_ way is almost laughable. Not because of looks; Betty knows she’s pretty, if plain. She went on a couple of dates with Trev Brown last year, and even Reggie Mantle tried to step up to bat once. Plus, Kevin and now Veronica, bless them, love to pump her with self-esteem boosts, and she’s been consciously trying to take it to heart this year.

But, as Jughead loves to remind her, she is probably singlehandedly keeping J.Crew in business with her collection of pastel sweaters and embellished collars. How would _she_ look hand-in-hand with the sullen, leather-jacket-wearing, dark-haired boy from the other side of the tracks?

The thought is a little thrilling but mostly implausible. For all his kindness and teasing, Jughead seems pretty attached to his image as the brooding loner. 

And yet, visions of them various domestic scenarios easily rush over her—Jughead and her shopping for groceries, debating over what to watch on Netflix—but she firmly shuts down the train of thought just as an image of her and Jughead embracing in a kiss enters into the fray.

She tries to force her mind back to her many to-do lists, and after a moment of deliberation, she decides to stomach an adderall to get through it all. Jughead appears in the doorway just as she’s stuffing the little orange bottle back into her bag, but if he noticed anything, he doesn’t show it.

His backpack falls to the ground with a dull thud and he hops onto a nearby desk, his feet swinging a bit.

“So what’s on the docket today, boss?” He grins, reaching around to grab the paperweight he loves to juggle between his hands. He’s certainly fidgety for a guy so preoccupied with nonchalance.

Before Betty can start, however, there’s a knock on the door. Kevin ambles in, already looking exasperated. “Betty, I’m pretty sure I put you on a budget of _five_ cryptic texts a week,” Kevin says, sighing. “You’ve definitely already met your quota.”

Betty smiles apologetically. “Thanks for coming, Kev. Do you want a soda or something?”

Kevin huffs and pulls his phone up to his face. “‘Kevin, come to the Blue & Gold immediately. Need to talk. Come alone.’” He shoots her a flattened look. “Betty. No, I don’t want a soda. Is this a shakedown?”

Jughead snorts, and Kevin’s eyes dart over to him with cold assessment, his mood instantly changing.

“We just wanted to ask you a few questions. Nothing too serious,” Betty says brightly, hoping that if she sounds confident enough, Kevin will stop looking like Jughead’s about to bring down a plague on both their houses.

Kevin sends her a tight smile. “Can I talk to you for a second?”

She follows him out into the hallway. “The lectures on being too cryptic kind of lose their punch when you act like this, Kev,” Betty points out.

“What is Jughead doing here?” Kevin sniffs, clearly ignoring that.

“He _wanted_ to join the paper; this is a school program, Kev. Even if I wanted to I couldn’t turn anyone away,” Betty says, shrugging. “And…he’s nice. I like him.”

“He’s a dick,” Kevin replies shortly. He exhales loudly at Betty’s look. “Sorry, I mean, he’s in my chem class and we were alphabetically paired together for a lab, and he was really rude to me.”

Betty sighs, thinking something along the lines of _pot_ and _kettle_ and _black_. “I’m sure he’s just nervous about being the new kid.”

“I kind of doubt it,” Kevin says, pinching his brow. “He’s just nice to you because he likes you. Boys and one thing and etcetera.”

Her cheeks burn. “Can we shelve the gender stereotypes for a minute? We’re just friends.”

Kevin purses his lips. “Okay, you of all people should know what pining looks like, but that’s not why I wanted to talk. Haven’t you considered that he might not be someone to hang around? The leather jacket, the motorcycle…the fact that he’s from the Southside…I have a theory, and it starts with an _S_ and rhymes with… _turpent_.”

“Of course I’ve considered that!” Betty says, crossing her arms. “I’m not an idiot, Kev. But I figure if he is a Serpent then he’ll be more motivated than most to help me with this, especially if someone is targeting them. And he’ll tell me when he feels comfortable. And if he’s not a Serpent…he’s still from the Southside, and he can be my man on the inside. Win-win. And it’s not like we’re hanging out watching _Project Runway_ after school, okay? It’s just a school paper thing.”

Betty knows that’s not exactly true, but she doesn’t feel like giving Kevin the satisfaction of revealing the extent of which they hang out in the Blue & Gold office.

“My dad has mentioned the Jones family before. I mean, he won't tell me anything, but I know Jughead doesn't run with a good crowd. And I’ve seen him at the police station myself, Betty,” Kevin says, though this time with less conviction. “More than once.”

“He had been arrested?” Betty asks, frowning and glancing back over her shoulder, staring at the doorway, where Jughead sits beyond.

“No,” Kevin replies, readjusting his messenger bag. “No, I don’t think so. I never saw him in cuffs, anyway. But…”

“Then what’s the problem?” Betty throws her hands in the air. “Kevin, I love you, but…can we talk about double standards? You haven’t given me any lectures about getting a milkshake with Veronica, and her dad is in _federal prison._ ”

Kevin looks for a moment like he’s about to argue, then deflates. “Touché.”

“You don’t have to trust him,” Betty says. “Just trust me.”

He nods, considering this. “I do; you know that.”

“So you’ll be nice?” Betty smiles hopefully, squeezing Kevin’s arm.

“I’ll soldier through,” Kevin says with an incredibly burdened sigh. But he grins mischievously at her, with it, and she knows she’s won him over.

When they return to Blue & Gold office, Jughead is right where they’ve left him, though he’s typing away furiously on a laptop. He looks up when they walk through the door, quickly stashes the computer behind him, and gives them an expectant wiggle of the eyebrow.

Betty joins him on an adjoining desk, and gestures to the corkboard of headlines. Kevin runs his eyes over it, a small, understanding sigh escaping under his breath.

“Ah, okay. Now I see why I’m here,” he says, in an amused voice. He spins around to face them, looking, thankfully, more intrigued than offended. “You want the sheriff’s son to give you the download. I’ll help where I can, but I don’t know much, honest.”

“We’re just looking for a place to start, really,” Betty says, feeling encouraged by Kevin’s receptiveness. “Anything you might be able to give us.”

Kevin looks back at the corkboard thoughtfully. “My dad has been a lot more stressed lately, that’s for sure. He’s working longer hours and he looks tired, like, all the time. He...well, I guess this is relevant. He also let it slip that the Feds are circling.”

“The Feds?” Jughead echoes, sitting up straighter.

“Why would the FBI be involved in a small town drug problem?” Betty asks, finishing the thought for him.

Kevin shrugs. “My dad thinks it’s bigger than that. He thinks someone is smuggling the drugs in and out of the state.”

“Which would automatically make it federal jurisdiction,” Betty concludes, tapping her pencil to her chin. “Who does he think is moving the drugs?”

Kevin looks at Jughead without much subtlety, and then to Betty. “Well,” he says apprehensively. “I know he suspects the Serpents…but if he had a case, he would’ve made arrests by now.”

Jughead scoffs loudly. “Yeah, okay. The Serpents barely even deal weed.”

“Really? And how do you know that?” Kevin replies, his lips curling into a triumphant, smug thing. 

He’s met with a roll of the eyes. “Just because I know where to buy weed doesn’t mean I sell it,” Jughead replies flatly, correctly reading between the lines. “Besides, you’d be surprised with how much more product rich jocks are likely to move than bikers. Statistically,” he adds, at the curious look Betty gives him. “Look it up.”

Without a word, Betty hops off her desk and scurries over to one of the filing cabinets. She pulls a pack of index cards from it and returns to the corkboard. Scribbling JOCKS on one of the cards, she adds it to the board silently. She also draws up a card for FEDS.

“I also know that there’s something weird about the drugs on the street right now,” Kevin says. “Like…not your usual dog-and-pony.”

Jughead nods solemnly. “Fentanyl,” he suggests. Both Betty and Kevin look at him. “It’s this…crazy strong opioid that’s been popping up all over. It started in Vancouver, spread to Montreal…it’s been showing up all over the east coast recently. People take it straight, or it's cut into heroin or other drugs. It would explain why there have been so many overdoses; a lot of people have no idea what they’re getting into with it.”

There’s a palpable pause. Betty makes a card for FENTANYL, and pins it to the center of the board with quiet force.

.

.

.

After Kevin leaves, they work in comfortable silence. Jughead returns to his laptop while Betty decides to gets a leg up on her AP Lit report. “What’s a synonym for ‘foreshadowed’? I’ve used this word like three times already.” She asks.

“Augured,” he says, not looking up from his typing.

“I need a word that sounds like I didn’t pull it from thesaurus.com,” Betty laughs, and he glances at her over the top of his computer. She can’t see his face, but the crease of his eyes seem to imply a smile.

“Foretelling, then,” he offers again, gaze back to being resolutely on his keyboard. “Fated.”

The pattering of keys fills the silence once again.

.

.

.

An hour later, Betty’s phone buzzes with a message from Veronica. **_Just got done with shopping. Milkshake?_**

Betty shoots back an affirmation, then starts to pack up. She hadn’t realized that she and Jughead had stayed so late, but the newspaper office had been such a quiet place to work. Certainly better than the library, which tends to be more of a social hub than a constructive place to study.

Jughead glances up. “Heading out?”

She nods. “Yep. Would...you wanna get a milkshake with me at Pop’s?”

He looks as though she might’ve just invited him to a book burning. Betty flushes, now feeling embarrassed. She doesn’t know why she thought he’d want to. It’s one thing to sit wordlessly doing their homework in the same quiet workspace, and it’s another to go to Pop’s together.

“Never mind, sorry,” she says after a long, uncomfortable silence. She turns her back to him and quickly finishes throwing her books in her bag.

He doesn’t say anything else, and when she glances at him from the doorway, he’s rubbing at the back of his neck, eyes down. “See you later,” she chirps, in a voice that doesn’t quite come out right.

Betty doesn’t know why it bothers her, but it gnaws the whole walk to Pop’s. Sure, she’s thought about Jughead that way once or twice, but she obviously doesn’t expect it to go anywhere. Did he think she was asking him out? She decides it’s just her ego feeling the punch; she’s always been the girl that, for better or worse, everyone likes.

She’s nice Betty Cooper, the girl who always lets people copy her notes, who always brings extra snacks, who always says yes to a favor. Everyone likes her. She works _hard_ to be that Betty Cooper.

She’ll just have to work harder.

Veronica, Archie, and a vanilla milkshake are waiting for her in a corner booth when she arrives at Pop’s. The dark-haired girl waves her over, and Archie offers her an apologetic smile, though she’s not sure why.

“I invited Archiekins along, hope you don’t mind, B,” Veronica says, pushing the milkshake towards her.

“Of course not.” Betty smiles. “Get anything good at the mall?”

Veronica waves a dismissive hand. “Oh, you know. The Riverdale mall isn’t exactly Barney’s…plus I’m on a budget now,” she says, more to herself. “But I did get the cutest little—”

But whatever Veronica says, Betty misses it, because the bell has tinkled and Jughead has just passed through the doorway, hands in his pockets and looking sour. His eyes dart around and find her right away, but he only spares her a fleeting look before heading off in the opposite direction of their table.

He beelines to the back of the restaurant and joins a couple of kids in leather jackets at a far booth; a boy with dark, sleek mane that runs behind his ears, and a girl with platinum blonde hair styled into an edgy pageboy cut. Jughead slides in next to the girl, and puts his arm around the back of her seat.

 _Oh_ , Betty thinks, as he glances her way one more time. _Oh_.

“—hello? Are either of you two listening to me?” Veronica drawls, waving a hand in front of Betty’s face.

Betty snaps to attention, and she realizes Archie has also been staring. His gaze refocuses on Veronica, next to him. “Sorry, Veronica,” he says. “What were you saying?”

“Clearly nothing as important as Ponyboy over there,” Veronica pouts, though the corners of her painted lips are curled.

“Ponyboy?” Archie repeats, brow wrinkling.

“Jughead,” Betty clarifies for Archie, though she refuses to look over again. She’s had enough embarrassment for today; she already realized he thought she was asking him out, but now that she knows he has a girlfriend, she understands why he’d been so awkward about her invitation. She makes a note to clarify things with him at the next Blue & Gold meeting.

“Oh,” Archie mumbles, picking at his fries. “I just…I haven’t seen him on this side of town in a while.”

“Yeah, you said you knew him?” Betty asks before she can stop herself. She’s been so much bolder lately, but she blames the fresh taste for investigation. Being a reporter has taken seed.

“Kinda. Our dads used to be good friends. They were in business together, for a little while. Jughead and I would hang out while they worked.” He shrugs, a little too casually. “But that was a long time ago.”

“Oh, Archie. Were you close?” Veronica asks gently, as if Archie had been talking about a recently attended funeral. Betty has to hand it to her, because Archie laps it up, simpering up at the look she gives him.

“Until his dad quit. Then he stopped talking to me,” Archie says, this time looking genuinely upset. Betty watches him. Besides the fact that he's an incredibly easy person to read, she's known Archie his whole life; there's something Archie's not saying, but before she can press him on it, Veronica has turned a probing look onto Betty. 

“So. Kevin said Jughead is working with you on the school paper,” she says in a voice that implies that Kevin had the same warning talk with her that he had with Betty.

She takes a long sip of her milkshake. “I’m investigating what’s going on in the Southside. Jughead is from the Southside. He wanted to help.”

Veronica and Archie give her the kind of concerned look she’d been expecting. “Investigating…overdoses? Drugs? Isn’t that kind of a tall order for a high school newspaper, Lois Lane?” Veronica asks.

Betty runs her tongue across her teeth. “I hate that no one wants to talk about it. People are struggling, and the mayor’s office just wants to plan a jubilee. It’s terrible, and I want it out there. So please, guys, unless you want to help, just drop it.”

“Alright,” Veronica says after a deliberating minute, though it looks like she wants to say more. She exchanges a look with Archie, but they let the moment pass.

Archie and Veronica fall into a conversation about their favorite films— _Field of Dreams_ and _Breakfast at Tiffany’s_ , respectfully—and Betty takes it as an opportunity to tune out.

Her eyes travel over the diner, though steadfastly avoiding the back booths. There’s a lone man at the counter in a crisp black suit, scribbling away in a notebook. A woman with her hands cupped around a steaming cup of coffee, staring off out the window. Her sister’s boyfriend, Jason Blossom, and a couple of other guys from the football team goofing off. A few of Cheryl’s minions feverishly texting, some Eagle Scouts hunched over a comic book, families. Kids.

In the quiet red dawn of Pop’s, Betty feels at peace, so far from the thoughts of conspiracy and darkness that have been plaguing her for weeks. She closes her eyes, and thinks about keeping them that way.

After what feels like hours, there’s a gentle touch to her hand. Betty’s eyes flutter open, and Veronica is gesturing over Betty’s shoulder. Jason is standing behind her, looking wan, while Reggie Mantle lingers to chat with Archie about football.

Jason taps his fingers on Betty’s side of the booth. “How’s Polly doing?” He asks quietly.

By the tone of his voice, Betty would think Polly was dying. “It’s just mono, Jason,” she smiles. “She’ll be better soon, I’m sure.”

“Can you ask her to call me?” Jason presses, still looking concerned. “Please? Cheryl said she isn’t responding to her calls either.”

That rings warningly. When Betty had tried to talk to Polly that morning, their mom had said she was on the phone with Jason. “You haven’t talked to her recently?”

Jason shakes his head. “Not since…uh, no. So, can you pass that along?”

Betty nods, and Jason smiles thankfully. He jerks his head towards the door, and then he and Reggie are gone. Betty’s mind whirs. Why had her mom lied?

Needing a moment to think, Betty excuses herself to the bathroom. Once there, she heads straight to the sink and runs the water over her hands. She’s just started splashing it over her face when the door opens and the platinum-haired girl—Jughead’s girlfriend—slips in.

 _She’s pretty_ , Betty thinks, now that she’s seeing her up close. A smattering of freckles and big blue eyes not unlike her own, she has a kind face, despite the off-duty-dominatrix look of a shredded black crop top and dark jeans under an oversized, well-loved leather jacket covered in cool patches. She smiles at Betty and joins her at the sink.

“Are you okay?” she asks, and her voice is a lot more melodic than Betty would’ve expected for someone rocking such a heavy _Runaways_ look.

Betty blinks at her, and then pinches her cheeks into a sturdy smile. “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine.”

The girl is still scanning her eyes across Betty’s face. “You go to Riverdale with Jug, right? He mentioned some Hitchcock blonde in a ponytail had strong-armed him into joining the school paper. You kind of fit that bill.”

Panic flutters across Betty’s chest, but before she can launch into what would’ve probably been an incoherent defense of herself as a would-be home wrecker, the girl just gives Betty a gentle punch on the shoulder.

“I’m impressed,” she laughs, sounding just as much. “The last after school activity Jug ever took part in was detention.”

Betty lets out the breath she didn't know she'd been holding.

If it were possible, Betty feels even sillier, now for thinking Jughead would’ve told his girlfriend he thought Betty had tried to encroach.

The girl turns and checks her hair in the mirror. “I’m Sabrina, by the way.” She pauses, almost expectantly, as if the name might mean something to her. “Sabrina Spellman.”

“Betty Cooper.” 

“I know,” Sabrina says, glancing at her through the mirror, eyes dancing. “Anyway. I’m sure I’ll be seeing a lot of you soon, Betty, so I just wanted to say hi and introduce myself.”

Her tone is friendly, but something vague feels hidden behind it. Feeling uncomfortable, Betty's eyes briefly drop down to busy themselves with studying the patches on Sabrina's jacket; a black cat, a crystal ball, and a pentagram, to name a few. She's sensing a theme here, and stares at a patch on Sabrina's arm.

 _Something wicked this way comes_ , it reads. Sabrina winks and turns on her heel.

 _No shit_ , Betty thinks.

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**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so we meet sabrina! i headcanon her as a serpent for s2, so this story includes the speculation i have for what she may look like or how she may appear and it really snowballs in the later chapters.
> 
> also, i promise a lot more dialogue between jug and betty in the coming chapters. often times, when you like someone, you can tell right away, which is why betty's crush develops quickly. hopefully the impression of their growing relationship still comes across. in the show, they got together so quickly, so their sense of connection/attraction is obviously strong; i wanted to honor that but draw it out as much as i could in the span of a 12 chapter story. 
> 
> that being said, as i'm writing more into the later chapters, i might move some things around and there might be a few more extra chapters added. we'll see how it folds out as i'm writing, but i can already tell it's going that way. 
> 
> on that note, i currently have 5 chapters completed and I can update this story every day until I run out of pre-written content, or I can space it out so that there's not a rush of updates and then a wait. work is ramping up so i can't predict how long the wait would be, though thus far the story has flown out of me quickly. 
> 
> please leave a review and sound off if you have a preference! also i've been really touched by the response thus far, so thank you guys!! it means so much and is so encouraging.


	4. Chapter 4

The next morning, Betty raps her knuckles gently on Polly’s door before pushing it open. “Brought you some tea,” she says to her sister in a little singsong voice. Polly slowly sits up in bed, but keeps the covers pulled tight around her. Betty thinks she looks a little better; she had been so flushed the last time Betty got to check on her.

“Thanks Betty,” Polly says, taking the mug gratefully and blowing on it before sipping.

Betty watches her drink it and uses the moment to gather her thoughts. “So…Jason talked to me yesterday,” she says carefully, and Polly tucks her head down. “He said you weren’t returning his or Cheryl’s calls. Polly…is everything okay? It’s been three weeks and you haven’t been back to school. If you’re really so sick, then—”

“Hey,” Polly whispers, covering Betty’s hand with her own. “I’m getting better, okay? The doctor said things should clear up soon but for now it’s still best if I stay home. There’s a lot I’d like to tell you, but…not right now. Can you be patient a little longer?”

“Okay,” Betty agrees, staring at a framed photograph of the Blossom twins and her sister. Polly stands between them, her arms over both their shoulders, all three of them beaming at the camera. They all seemed so happy. “Okay.”

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.

“Alright, bitches,” Cheryl claps her hands together, signaling the end of practice. “That’s enough for one day. Check your emails tonight for next week’s new routine and you better fucking study it, _Ginger_. And,” she adds sharply, “a reminder that tomorrow night is the first big party of the year, and Vixen attendance is absolutely mandatory. Make sure I see every one of you at the Mantle mansion tomorrow, on pain of death. Now, dismissed," she adds, fluttering her hands like little wings and whishing them away.

Veronica exchanges looks with Betty as she heaves her gym bag onto her shoulder. “A party? That sounds fun. I have this new little black dress I've been _dying_ to break in.”

Betty indulges a quick roll of the eyes. “Reggie always throws the first back to school party of the year. It’s usually a mess and practically the whole school goes. Fun’s not necessarily the word I’d use. I usually put in my appearance just so Cheryl doesn’t murder me, and then go home.”

“C’mon, B, when was the last time you let loose a little? Granted, we haven’t known each other long, but I feel I have it on good authority that you’re owed a night of teenage frivolity,” Veronica says, half a demand as they head for the exit. Betty is spared trying to scrape for an answer, however, as Cheryl Blossom steps straight into their path.

“Not so fast, Holly Hobbie.” She smiles coldly, and shoos Veronica away. Reluctantly, Veronica goes, but not before passing Betty a sympathetic look over her shoulder. Cheryl clasps her hands in front of her. “I hope there’s a very good reason for Polly’s continued absence from my social circle.”

Betty adjusts her bag. “I talked to her this morning. She’s still pretty sick, but said the doctor told her things would clear up soon.”

“That doesn’t explain why she won’t pick up her phone,” Cheryl snaps. She gives Betty a once over, her eyebrows twitching, and tucks a lock of hair behind her ear. “Has she said anything to you?”

“About what?” Betty asks, frowning at the expression Cheryl is fighting to control. 

Cheryl studies her for another moment. Calculating. Then, “Nothing. Now be gone, munchkin.”

Not wanting to risk further wrath, Betty doesn’t need to be told twice. But as she makes it to the door, she glances back once to see Cheryl still rooted to the same spot in the center of the gym, her arms folded, as if lost in thought.

If Betty didn’t know any better, she’d say that Cheryl almost looked scared.

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.

.

That afternoon, as she crosses the main field to get from cheer practice to the newspaper office, Betty wonders how awkward she has made things with Jughead. If he’ll treat her differently, if the kid gloves are coming on, if they have to have a talk about boundaries…

Mostly, she just doesn’t want to lose him as a new friend. She meant what she said to Kevin yesterday; she likes Jughead, genuinely, and likes being around him. He has a calming presence; she can spend twenty minutes pacing around the Blue & Gold rambling, but one low chuckle from Jughead, and she’ll catch herself and calm down. Sure, he’s more than a little aloof, but she’s more than a little bubbly. It balances out.

As she nears the Blue & Gold office, a sweet, buttery aroma hangs in the air. It gets stronger as she gets closer, and by the time she’s reached the door, she’s realized what she smells.

“Popcorn?” She asks from the doorway, raising an eyebrow. Jughead is leaning devil-may-care against a counter, watching the little paper bag spin and pop in a shiny microwave. “Where’d you get popcorn? Wait, where’d you even get the microwave?”

He grins at her. “Ask me no questions and I’ll tell you no lies,” he hums.

She puts her hands up in mock surrender. “Alright, we'll go with plausible deniability. I don’t wanna know,” she says, dropping her bag by her usual desk. She suspects the teacher’s lounge is missing a new microwave, but frankly she’s tired of being forced to finish coffee gone cold, so secretly she’s grateful. She takes a long inhale and sinks into a creaky wooden chair. “God, I haven’t had popcorn in so long.”

Jughead looks scandalized, but then again, Betty can count the amount of times she’s seen him not eating on one hand. “Not even at the movies?”

 _Not since Cheryl put me on a Vixen-approved diet_ , she thinks. “It’s been a while since I’ve had time to go to the movies,” she says instead, which is technically true. “Plus, there’s only so many times a girl can watch coming-of-age sports movies without getting a little tired of the casual sexism of it all.”

“Archie Andrews’s cinematographic taste hasn’t expanded much, eh?” Jughead nods knowingly.

Betty blinks; she knew, from Archie, that they had once been friends, but this is the first time Jughead himself has admitted it. Archie is certainly more evasive on the topic than Jughead seems to be, but Betty's not on the mood to push him on it today, given the talk she has to have with him later. 

“I love him, but Archie still dresses up like Rambo every year for Halloween,” Betty sighs. “He’s predictable. Anyway, I think the last movie I saw outside of my computer screen was maybe... _Cry-Baby_?” 

Jughead raises his eyebrows. “Did you see it at the Twilight Drive In?" Betty nods; he had mentioned that he used to work there up until last year. "Oh my god  _Betty_ , that was two years ago! Okay, what was the last film you saw, period?”

That one she doesn't have to think too hard about. “ _Kill Bill_ ,” she says, allowing herself a moment to reminisce about how that had been the first time they'd ever had a non-paper related conversation, even if it was mostly just Jughead listing off his favorite parts of the DVD featurettes. 

Something soft tugs at his lips briefly. “That doesn't count. I mean, a movie that you picked out for yourself.” 

 _Oh_. Frankly, Betty can't think of the last thing she picked out for herself, period, but she tries not to dwell on that. She used to always choose something Hitchcock, but ever since her anxiety has been ramping up, she has trouble making it through her old favorites without getting too stressed, even when she knows it’s coming.

She has to ruminate on it for a moment. “ _10 Things I hate About You_.” 

He groans and actually even puts his head in his hands. “A teen rom-com, Betts? Really?” 

She flusters a little at the new nickname, but manages to swallow it down. “I wanted to watch something to relax to! Not every cinematic experience needs to be intellectualized, Jughead. And it’s not just a teen rom-com, it’s _Shakespearean_. It’s a modern adaption of _Taming of the Shrew_ and you’d probably actually like it, even if there are no gratuitous shots of people staring down the barrel of a gun.”

Jughead releases a heavy sigh of offense. The microwave beeps, and he pulls the bag out with pinched fingers. He immediately turns and readies another bag; she knows it's because he wants his own and isn't particularly good at sharing his food. Even though she's unlikely to have more than a few handfuls of popcorn herself, the fact that he's making a bag for her strikes her as uncharacteristically sweet. 

She squints at him. “You actually kind of remind me of the main character, a little bit.” 

He raises an eyebrow; might even look a little puffed up, come to think of it. “I remind you of Heath Ledger?” 

She swivels her chair away to hide her smirk. “No, the shrew character. Julia Stiles.”

He balls up a nearby piece of paper and throws it at her, which she dodges easily. “This is doing terrible things for my ego, by the way, if you care at all.” 

“Good,” Betty giggles. “You, me, and your ego was getting to be kind of a tight fit in here.” 

“Wow, and here I thought the popcorn was too salty, Cooper,” Jughead sighs, but he’s definitely smiling. He might be right, she realizes. She's never been much good at teasing, but there's something about Jughead that begs for it.

“Still. I know for a fact you still haven’t seen _2001: A Space Odyssey_ , which means there’s probably a lot of other deep cuts you’re missing out on, so we have much work to do. Good thing you have me and our new friend Patty to supply you with the tools of education. I will be the teacher, and the popcorn will be your pen.”

She guffaws, thinking to herself that Jughead is far dorkier than she would’ve ever seen coming. It’s kind of really cute. “I’m sorry, who is Patty now?” 

He reaches over and gives the microwave an affectionate tap. “Patty Hearst. That’s our microwave. I kidnapped her, so the name seemed fair.” 

“You named the microwave? And that makes us…the S.L.A.? Great,” she exhales. “Let me know when our first bank robbery is scheduled.”

He doesn’t miss a beat. “Tuesday at four,” he says, a wry smile growing.  

“Can’t, I have cheer practice,” she quips. 

“Shoot,” he says blithely. They exchange smirks. “Anyway. I’ll make you a deal. You pick a movie, I pick a movie. We’ll rotate off. No complaining, no take-backs; it just it has to be a film that the other person hasn’t seen before.”

A part of her urges herself to say no, because that goofy little grin of his is a trap waiting to happen. She needs to put distance between them, not barrel on full speed into more time with him. And yet, because she’s always suspected that she's secretly a masochist, she finds herself agreeing. “You’re gonna regret that, but sure, deal.”

“Yeah, I think I already do. You know, a person’s favorite film is very telling,” Jughead says, shooting Betty a furtive glance.

Betty spins a little in her chair. “Wanna guess mine?”

“Challenge accepted.” Jughead gives her a dorky little bow. “Let’s see…you’ve got taste, and you’re a girl who likes intrigue, obviously. An investigation. A little bit of suspense. A good twist. Plucky, headstrong characters who don’t let anything go…” He says, smirking at her false indignation. He gives her a once over. “You’ve got a fair pinch of Grace Kelly, a dash of Hitchcock… _Rear Window_?”

The microwave dings. Betty gapes at him. “No way. You must’ve already known that. I must've mentioned it or something,” she says, the words _plucky_ and _headstrong_ and _Grace Kelly_ ringing in her ears.

He grins, looking pleased with himself. He reaches up and adjusts the swoop of his curls. “Was I right? It’s _Rear Window_?”

“You cheated,” Betty decides, because considering the option of him already knowing her that well just reminds her of the conversation she has to have with him about Sabrina, and her stomach is sinking again.

“God as my witness,” Jughead says, blowing on the finished bag of popcorn. “Guess I’m not half bad at this investigative journalism thing. Alright, your turn.”

Betty nibbles on her bottom lip. She’s worried that if she’s too on the nose, he’ll think she’s coming onto him again. “ _Grease_ ,” she says cheekily.

“Shut up,” Jughead laughs, and she’s struck by how nice the sound is. “Seriously, c’mon, Nancy Drew, I know you’re better than that.”

She sighs. “Okay, well…I know you like Tarantino because you mention him every other day—” Jughead rolls his eyes. “—but his films are all about revenge, and that’s not you. You’re an observer, but you’re on the side of justice. You like grit. Truth; probably something noir. _L.A. Confidential_?” 

Jughead’s face is completely unreadable. He stuffs a handful of popcorn into his mouth in what seems like a stalling tactic. “Not bad, Cooper,” he says, through a mouthful. Then he swallows.

“So, I’ve been thinking about the investigation,” he announces in a tight voice, abruptly changing the topic without much segue. “And I feel like we need something that ties this together, right?”

Betty nods, forcing her thoughts to the corkboard. “Kevin said that there have been a lot more drugs hitting the streets. I think if we could figure out who was dealing, we could start to understand where it’s coming from.”

“It’s not the Serpents,” Jughead says immediately, with an evident note of defensiveness. He shoves his left hand in his pocket and uses the free one to readjust his hair.

“I know it’s not,” Betty replies. “The fact that only known Serpents have been the ones ending up in the hospital is what made me curious about this whole thing in the first place.” She gesticulates towards the wall of clippings. “Plus the motorcycle accidents—again, only Serpents.”

“It feels like someone is trying to kill them off,” Jughead says meditatively, rubbing at his chin. She gapes at him, and he shrugs, almost helplessly.  “I mean, okay, I know that sounds dramatic, but…they’re definitely being targeted.”

“Mm-hm. That’s definitely a workable theory,” Betty agrees, nodding.“Okay, I’ve been thinking that whoever is making the drugs wants the Serpents to sell them. And if they wouldn’t agree to it…”

“…Then come the attacks,” Jughead finishes, chest heaving as the thought sinks in.

“Why wouldn’t the Serpents report it, though?” Betty asks. “I mean, if they know who is threatening them, why not put an end to it?”

Jughead laughs hollowly. “Betty, sorry, but no police officer would ever take the word of a Serpent at face value. Plus, they might not even know who’s behind it all. They’re probably just as in the dark as we are.”

“Without being able to talk to any of them, though,” Betty says cautiously, deciding to test her theory, “it’s hard to know what’s happening on their side. Find out if they’ve had any explicit threats. I wish I could interview one of them.” She pauses, waiting to see if Jughead will take the bait.

 _Tell me now_ , she thinks. _Tell me you’re a Serpent_.

He rubs under his nose. “Yeah, that would be helpful,” he says vaguely.

The moment stretches between them, and Betty taps her fingers to her thigh, struggling to keep the disappointment at bay. But if Jughead were a Serpent, he’d have just told her. She decides to move on; she’ll press him for other Southside leads later.

“By the way, Jughead.” He turns his eyes on her, still hooded. “I wanted to apologize for yesterday.”

“Apologize?” He repeats.

Betty exhales. “I realized it might’ve seemed like…I was asking you out,” she says, all in one breath. Jughead’s eyes go wide. “I’m so sorry, I promise you that I was not. I just was inviting you to get a milkshake with me and my friends. I _know_ you have a girlfriend. Sabrina is so nice, and I’d really hate to think that either of you got the wrong idea about me.”

Jughead clears his throat, staring at her. She thinks he might look a little guilty; something plainly works across his face, and then he swallows once more. “Uh. You know Sabrina?”

“Met her briefly, in the bathroom at Pop’s,” Betty clarifies. “But I just wanted to clear the air. So...friends?”

He wets his lips, and shakes his head a little, more to himself. “Of course. I want that,” he says quietly. “Friends.”

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**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh these crazy kids. wanted to give them some light, happy bantering because the next few chapters get real heavy real fast. but next up is the party at reggie's and it's my favorite thus far and i'm really excited to get into that. please review and let me know what you think!
> 
> by the way, i'm an illustrator, so i drew up the character design for sabrina. please check it out if you've got a min: http://onceuponamirror.tumblr.com/post/160825589356/you-know-when-i-think-about-things-i-know-that-all


	5. Chapter 5

Kevin, Veronica, Betty, and Archie make plans to meet up at Pop’s before Reggie’s party, deciding it was the most inconspicuous excuse to give their parents in lieu of telling them where they’d actually be.

Betty is the last to arrive, having argued about her outfit with her mother for a solid twenty minutes before leaving. She begrudgingly agreed to change her top when the fight had officially made her late to meet her friends, but, in a sudden burst of what smelt like teen spirit, she stuffed her original shirt into her purse anyway.

Her friends are waiting in their usual booth, and she’s about to head over when she notices a familiar figure at the counter. It’s the same man in the suit that she noticed the other day, in the exact same spot, still alone, drinking a strawberry milkshake. He has all the posture of a man who wants to be left alone, but between the pink drink and the starched suit, he's not exactly inconspicuous.

 _Very Agent Dale Cooper_ , she thinks, watching him scribbling something in his notebook. His wrist moves rhythmically, as if circling something on the page.

He pauses. Then, as if feeling her eyes on him, he glances over his shoulder at her briefly. But he looks away before she can discern his expression, so she dismisses the thought and jogs over to her friends.

“Sorry I’m late!” She exhales. “I’m just gonna go change my shirt in the bathroom, and then we can go.”

“Wait, I’ll come,” Veronica says, grinning and sliding out of her seat. She links arms with Betty, leaning in conspiratorially. “I’ve done my fair share of wardrobe changes once out of sight of the parental unit too.”

As soon as the bathroom door swings shut, Veronica hops onto the sink countertop while Betty disappears behind a stall to change. She re-emerges a moment later in her new shirt, a billowy, off-the-shoulder pink blouse that skims the top of her black high-waisted jeans.

Veronica flashes an approving grin. “Oh my god, B, loverboy is gonna die.”

“Loverboy?” Betty echoes, amused, as she leans forward to apply a shade of blush lipstick.

“Jughead, of course,” Veronica replies. She crosses her ankles and checks her own reflection behind her. “Kevin said he walked past the Blue & Gold yesterday and you two were watching a _movie_ and sitting awfully close. Come on, I know you’ve been holding out on me.”

Betty busies herself with redoing her ponytail, deciding to let a few flyaway strands frame her face. “Kevin’s big mouth is gonna get him in trouble one day,” Betty sighs. She looks at Veronica through the mirror and tries to train her expression into a neutral position. “There’s nothing to report, honestly. Jughead has a girlfriend, and we’re just friends.”

Veronica’s lips twist sympathetically. “That Undead Marilyn Monroe from the other night? Oh, no. Do we hate her?”

“Ronnie, of course not. Her name is Sabrina, and she’s really nice,” Betty says, avoiding her gaze and busying herself by sliding her lipstick back into her purse.

“You think everyone is really nice,” Veronica points out.

“I do not,” Betty retorts, exhaling. 

“Okay, honey, but would you really admit out loud it if someone wasn’t?”

 _Point taken._ “I’m working on that. Ready to go?”

But Veronica doesn’t move. An apprehensive look crosses her features. “Well, while I have you alone…Kevin also mentioned that you and Archie have a…history.”

“Oh,” Betty says, sensing where this may be going. 

“Right, and Chuck Clayton asked me out, and I told him I’d think about it, but…honestly I’m sort of expecting an invitation to dinner from Archie any day now and I’d rather hold out for the ginger stallion.” Veronica suddenly looks bashful. “I haven’t had a lot of good friends before, Betty. I’d never want to do anything to jeopardize our friendship, or let a boy come between us. So say the word, and I’ll turn Archie down.”

Betty inhales softly, touched. Truthfully, when she'd first met Veronica, she hadn't been sure what to make of her, but now she's glad for Veronica's self-insertion into her life. “Thanks for telling me, V, but if you guys want to be together, I’m happy for you. I promise that things with Archie are water under the bridge. Besides, Chuck is a player. You don’t want to go down that road.”

Veronica smiles softly. “I’m glad I met you, Betty Cooper.”

She reaches over for Veronica’s hand, and gives it a squeeze. “Me too.”

.

.

.

Betty offers to be the designated driver and Archie gratefully throws her the keys to his dad’s truck. She shouldn’t be drinking with the prescriptions she’s on anyway, but she’s never liked the lack of inhibitions that come with alcohol. Liquor and control freaks don’t mix.

It’s a tight squeeze, the four of them in the Andrews’ pick up, but they manage after Veronica offers to sit on Archie’s lap. Kevin offers too, which makes them all laugh.

They hear the party raging before they even make the last bend up the Mantle’s incredibly long driveway. After Betty finds a place to park, she debates with whether to leave her jacket in the car. It’s nearly October and the seasonal chill has set in, but she’d just have to find somewhere to stash it, and then she’d be thinking about it in the back of her mind the whole night.

So, shivering a bit, they all head in. Archie and Veronica immediately disappear to find drinks, leaving Betty and Kevin in the foyer. He suggests they take a lap.

“So, word on the street is that Moose Mason bats for the home team. He’s a baseball player, right? Or, I don’t know, whatever sports euphemism is appropriate here,” Kevin says, making a passing grab at a bowl of chips. “Think I should investigate?”

Betty wrinkles her nose. “Doesn’t Moose have a girlfriend?”

“Midge? Didn’t you hear? She’s dating Nancy Woods now. Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy for them, but like, how is it that I’m _still_ the only out boy in the school district?”

Betty shoots him a sympathetic smile, which he accepts with a sigh. They fall into silence as they weave through the developing swarm of people. Reggie Mantle is wandering through a hallway with a keg over his shoulder seemingly for the pure intention of showing that he can, Tina Patel is texting away in a corner, and Cheryl Blossom is draped against a doorway talking to Chuck Clayton, standing so close that her hands are in the pockets of his letterman jacket. She passes Betty an acknowledging nod before turning her attention back to Chuck.

Technically, that means Betty could go now, and a part of her already wants to, but Kevin is scanning the crowd ravenously and she thinks she'd have an easier time stealing Jughead away from a David Lynch double feature than getting Kevin to leave at the start of a party.

The thought of it makes her briefly wonder if Jughead is here, but the image alone almost makes her laugh out loud; Jughead Jones, at Reggie Mantle’s house party? She's just picturing him doing a keg stand when Betty bumps into Kevin, not realizing he has frozen on the spot. “Oh. My. God.”

“What?” She follows his line of sight and lets out a small gasp, because standing with his arms crossed and slouching against a kitchen cabinet with a scowl is, of all, people, Jughead.

“Now that’s an unexpected sight,” Kevin says, looking at Betty excitedly. He seems to have momentarily forgotten he hates Jughead. “I didn’t realize it was The Night of the Living Dead.”

As they’re staring, Sabrina appears next to Jughead, handing him a bottle of water. She seems to sense their eyes on them immediately, because she looks over and nudges him. Sabrina gives a beckoning wave, and Jughead stands up straighter.

Kevin slips away with a feverishly whispered, “ _Report back_ ,” and Betty has no choice but to approach the couple on her own. She's struck by how right they look standing together, like Riverdale's own Gomez and Morticia.

“Betty!” Sabrina greets animatedly. “We were wondering if we’d see you tonight. Here, take my drink, I’ll go get another.”

But Betty waves her off, an anxious flush at her chest. “It’s okay, I don’t really...drink.”

“Then you two can keep each other company,” Sabrina says, after exchanging a look with Jughead. “Jug doesn’t either, and I think I’m annoying him.”

He sighs. “You’re not annoying me. Hey Betty,” he adds with a nod of his head.

“Well, I’m about to,” she says with a mischievous grin. “So, Betty, now you can settle a debate for us. Jug and I were trying to guess your sign. He says Sagittarius, I say Taurus.”

Betty raises her eyebrows; Jughead is staring at the ceiling, like this conversation is already testing his patience. “You’re right. I’m a Taurus.”

“Stubborn, loyal, reliable, ruled by the planet Venus,” Sabrina says automatically, as if reciting a list from memory. “See? You owe me shake.”

“That does like Betty,” Jughead concedes, taking a long pull of his water. He glances at Betty. “Sabrina’s really into this magic stuff.”

“For the last time, it’s not _magic_ ,” Sabrina huffs, exasperated. Clearly, they’ve had this conversation before. “It’s _astrology_ , dumbass. It’s closer to a form of psychology. It’s practically a science. You can get a degree in it.”

He shrugs, hands in his pockets. “Fine, show me where you can get a degree in astrology and I’ll stop calling it magic,” Jughead says, a diplomatic keel to his voice. 

Sabrina grins at Betty. “That’s such a Libra thing to say,” she half-whispers conspiratorially. Jughead throws up his hands in the air, and Betty snorts.

“Well, Jughead doesn’t much like to out on a limb,” Betty ventures. “No offense, but I’ve never seen you suspend your disbelief for anyone other than Stanley Kubrick.”

“Hey, allegory I can get behind. Expecting me to blindly accept the month of October shaped my personality is another thing entirely.” 

“It's so not that simple, and you know it. But whatever. One day, you’ll see the light,” Sabrina sighs. “Anyway, Betty, you should totally let me give you a reading.”

Betty dimly wonders why Sabrina is so interested in her. It’s not like she seems threatened by her at all; if anything, she seems to take joy in her friendship with Jughead. Then again, if she knew about the feelings Betty was desperately trying to stamp out, she might not be so friendly.

She cocks her neck. “A reading?”

“A tarot card reading,” Sabrina clarifies. “I can tell you’ve got an open mind.”

Coming from Sabrina that seems like a big compliment, so Betty agrees and they swap phone numbers. Jughead watches the exchange with a frown, but doesn't say a word. 

“Well, I’m gonna go see what kind of skeletons rich people hide in their walk-in closets,” Sabrina announces surreptitiously, once she’s finished typing Betty’s name into her phone. “I’ll see you two kids later. Betty, I’ll be in touch.”

Sabrina bounces off, her oversized leather jacket prominent against the crowd. Betty feels a stab of envy at how trusting their relationship is, but swallows it. She and Jughead stare after her until she's out of sight. “So. Didn’t think this was your scene.”

Jughead grimaces. “It’s not. Joaquin dragged us here. He has a booty call with a football player and one minute I was playing pool, minding my own business…and the next, I was here…I don’t know, it all happened so fast.”

Betty giggles. He gives her a once over, and she thinks his gaze might linger a little on her bare shoulders. “It’s a little weird to see you out of a pastel sweater. How do you think J.Crew is taking this devastating blow?”

“Ha, ha,” she says, rolling her eyes.

He smirks, and gestures vaguely to the outside patio. “It’s kinda loud in here. Wanna take a walk?”

She agrees, and he reaches for her hand to lead her through the throng of dancing people. They pass Jason, who is leaning in a corner with a red solo cup perched on his lips, looking dazed and miserable; Betty makes a note to check on him later.

The pads of Jughead’s hands are calloused and warm and so comforting that she almost forgets the scars on her own. He drops his grip as soon as they make it outside and passes her an odd look. She has a pang of worry that he felt the crescent ridges in her skin, but he doesn't say anything.

The grounds of the Mantle mansion are well manicured and smell sweetly of jasmine and ivy. On the other side of the garden is a small hot tub, giving off a thick, swirling steam that draws Betty towards it like a moth to a flame. She cuffs her jeans and slides out of her boots, slipping her feet into the warm water with a sigh.

Jughead deliberates for a moment, then joins her at the edge of the tub. It takes him a little longer to get his feet out of his clunky boots, but exhales in a satisfied way when his skin touches the water.

It’s blissfully quiet, save for the bubbling water and a muffled pop song floating across the garden. Betty leans back on her palms and tips her chin up at the stars. The Mantles live just far out enough that they’re a lot more visible than from her own neighborhood. She traces the few constellations she remembers; the North Star winks down at her.

When she turns her attention back to Jughead, she finds he’s been watching her. He quickly looks away.

_He has a girlfriend. He has a girlfriend._

She splashes her feet in the water. _Think of something else._

She wonders if she’ll ever like someone with a chance of returning her feelings. _Not that._

“I really don’t like parties,” Jughead says quietly, but with meaning, his gaze searing into hers. She scans her eyes across his face, but doesn’t understand what he’s trying to say. He seems to give up trying to telepathically communicate with her, because he deflates a little and glances down.

“So, how long have you known Sabrina?” Betty chirps, trying to clear the air.

He exhales noisily. “Forever, really. Her aunt and my dad are pretty tight, so she was around a lot growing up.”

“Her aunt?”

“Sabrina’s parents died when she was really little. Some kind of freak motorcycle accident. It’s not really my story to tell, but I know she’s come to terms with it,” Jughead replies, staring at the water.

“I like her,” Betty says after a moment. It's true, even though she’d seemed incredibly intimidating the first time they’d met.

Jughead seems to pick up on her thoughts. “I know she’s looks tough, but she’s mostly a big softie. Like, she’s got this cat, right? And this ridiculous baby voice she uses whenever she’s talking to him, or even about him, when he’s not even around! It’s so annoying. But very her.”

“Sounds like you,” she admits, a pang of guilt hitting her. They make sense together.

Jughead looks incredibly offended. “I would _never_ use a baby voice. If you ever catch me doing that, put me out of my misery.”

“I meant the part about you being a softie, jerk,” Betty giggles, pushing on his arm.

He crosses his arms, looking all the more indignant. “I’m not a softie,” he mumbles. He catches her eye, and unsuccessfully fights off a grin. “I’m a dangerous guy on a motorcycle. Very scary.”

“‘Oh Betty, it’s so unfair how the Academy treats Tarantino. He’s been only nominated for Best Director twice and never won despite creating a defining aesthetic for a generation,’” Betty mocks, in what she's sure is a terrible impression of Jughead’s deep voice.

His mouth opens with a loud scoff. But he and Betty both know she’s not off base, and he stops resisting a smile. “I plead the fifth.”

“If people cared about others as much as you do about Quentin Tarantino, the world would be a better place,” she sighs.

They fall into silence again. The water churns, and the party chants.

Then, “Remember what you first asked me when we met? About why I transferred from Southside?”

Betty looks over. She remembers thinking he seemed too smart for such an underfunded school, and tells him as much.

“Well,” He mumbles, embarrassed, “that’s half right. Or, at least, my GPA is why the school board let me change districts…but my dad only put the request in because I’d started digging around into the overdoses and accidents on my own.

“My dad’s friend died last spring. Overdose. He was a good guy; used to help out around the house when my dad had to work, and stuff. And then he was just gone. No obituary in the town paper, no mention of it anywhere. Made me feel really shitty and alone...it was like he didn’t even exist. The only overdoses anyone writes about are the ones where the police are the heroes and save the day."

He kicks forcefully at the water. “I just feel so... _mad_  all the time. The south side is bleeding and no one cares. Like they’re hoping we’ll just die out or something.”

“Juggie,” she breathes, the new nickname curling around her tongue in a way that feels right.

 _I care_ , she thinks.

He rubs a hand down his face. “I wanted to do something about it. So I started writing this…well, I think of it like a novel, and I got a little roughed up for it. I don’t know who did it. My dad found out it was because about the story I was writing, and he was pissed. I’ve never seen him so angry,” Jughead says, his voice just above a whisper. “After that, he set it up with the school, and here I am.”

Jughead chuckles emptily. “If he had any idea I was in it deeper here…”

Betty barely knows what to say, but she knows him well enough to think he won’t want pity, just support. “We’re going to solve this, Juggie. Get justice for the south side. Don’t give up yet.”

Selfishly, she doesn’t want him to leave her or the paper. She didn’t lose anyone like he did, and feels silly for comparing it, but she had felt alone and angry all summer too and she doesn't want to go back to that.

Betty’s internship in California had been an opportunity she wouldn’t trade; being around her literary heroes had been amazing, but she had looked around one day, and suddenly her life felt startlingly transactional, like she solely existed to do things for others. Then she realized, with a terrible pang, that this was nothing new.

She arranged for the _Riverdale Register_ to be sent to her to feel closer to home, but all it did was make her feel lonelier and farther away. The days were long. The girls in L.A. were intimidating and she never tried to hang out with them outside of work. She would read her parents’ words until the newsprint stained her fingers black, and then stare at the ceiling until sleep came.

Returning home didn’t help; Polly was distant, Archie was split between working for his dad and visiting his mom in Chicago, Kevin was at a pre-college program in New York all summer, and it felt like her parents were arguing more than ever.

Not long after she got back, a terrible fight had broken out between her parents; by the end of the night, Betty was cleaning up shards of glass, but the next morning, she sat down to breakfast to a family passing pancakes around like nothing had happened.

Her nails quietly dug into her palms with all the force of a rubber band finally snapping.

The next day, she set to work on reforming the school newspaper; for a town preoccupied with small talk about the weather, no one seemed to see the dark cloud settling over Riverdale. People were struggling and no one was _noticing_ and it cut through to where it was personal because she knows what it is to be invisible.

But then Jughead joined her quest for justice and, for the first time in her life, Betty doesn’t feel alone, not when she’s with him. She’s barely known him a month but it’s as if he’s known Betty her whole life. He sees the way her fists clench and he makes her laugh when she’s anxious and steadies her when she’s spiraling. He doesn't think she's meek or naive, but rather plucky and _brave_ of all things. She's realizing that maybe he's right. 

She wants to tell him, tell him how he makes her feel _seen_  and what that means to her, but the image of Sabrina’s kind face kills the words on her tongue.

 _Sabrina_. It’s like being doused in ice water.

He stares at her. “Betty, there’s something else…”

But she finds herself standing up and Jughead’s mouth snaps shut.

 _I can’t do this again_ , she thinks. Whatever he was going to say, she doesn't want to hear it. Even if her feelings aren’t unrequited, and she’s starting to suspect they aren’t, she doesn’t want to be that girl, and moreover, she refuses to play second fiddle.

She spent too many years pining over Archie Andrews to fall prey to this kind of self-loathing all over again.

Jughead gets to his feet while she unrolls her jeans and rubs her feet in the nearby grass to dry them off. Silently, they pull their shoes and socks back on and head back towards the pulsing party. She shivers, and feels his leather jacket drape over her shoulders a moment later.

It’s heavy and warm and smells like him and she should really take it off immediately, but he’s resolutely staring off in the opposite direction and she thinks it’d be more awkward to hand it back than it would be to keep it.

So she slides her arms into the sleeves and says nothing.

.

.

.

They find another entrance back to the house than the one they left through. The sliding door puts them just under a staircase in a relatively quiet alcove; Betty briefly scans around for any of her friends, hoping they’ll be willing to leave soon, but the room is empty save for a canoodling Reggie and Ginger.

Neither seems to even notice Betty or Jughead as they stumble up the stairs, giggling, and despite the awkwardness from a minute ago, Jughead shoots her an amused smirk.

She returns it. Holds it as long as she can, until his face turns serious.

Suddenly, Joaquin is thundering down the steps, taking them two at a time, and the moment is broken. Jughead catches him at the base of the stairs, trying to grab onto his arm, but Joaquin rips it away, his face wide and pale with terror.

He seems like he’s about to say something, but a loud, feminine scream pierces the air and then Joaquin is hissing, “I called 911 already, we gotta go!”

Betty and Jughead turn their heads to the stairs, where the girl is screaming again. “He’s not breathing!” Someone shouts. “Holy shit! He’s not breathing!”

Joaquin shoots Jughead one last desperate look before darting down a hallway. Wordlessly, Betty and Jughead hurry up the stairs, but a cursing Sabrina intercepts them on her way down.

“Jug, fuck, we gotta go,” she cries, grabbing him by the collar and yanking him down the stairs with her. “If they see us here we’re fucked!”

“What? What happened? What’s going on?” Jughead hollers, helpless to the force of Sabrina’s grip on his shirt. She drags him out the way Joaquin disappeared; Jughead looks over his shoulder at Betty, eyes blown wide.

She tries to follow them, but the screaming has drawn a crowd and she’s pushing against the tide. She barely makes it outside in time to see Sabrina and Jughead mounting their bikes and tearing off into the night without a backwards glance.

Betty stares after them until she can no longer hear the roar of their engines and all she’s left with is the distant wailing of sirens and the dim awareness that someone is hurt.

 _Someone is hurt_. A _boy_ is hurt. Reality crashes into Betty with full force and she spins on her heel, breaking back towards the house. When had she seen Kevin last? Archie? Jason?

An empty solo cup crunches underfoot. The wind picks up her loose strands of hair. Red flashes against the trees.

.

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**Notes for the Chapter:**

> honestly when i started this fic, i did not plan for it to be this dramatic. like i said though: a stupid amount of plot
> 
> please let me know what you thought! reviews mean the world to me tbh


	6. Chapter 6

It feels like a moment beyond time; it could’ve taken Betty seconds to reach the stairwell, or it could’ve taken hours and she’ll never know. Her muscles seem unbearably heavy and her skin feels pulled tight around them. Every movement she makes is like fighting off a swarm of bats, pushing back through the crowd and mounting chaos.

She retraces her thoughts to the last time she saw any of her friends, looking around feverishly for them. Veronica and Archie had disappeared immediately, and she hasn’t seen Kevin since the kitchen. She and Jughead had passed Jason in the hall on their way outside, and he hadn't looked too good—was it Jason who was lying unconscious upstairs?

How would she ever look Polly in the eye again if she’d seen Jason looking faint right before he collapsed and, rather than help him, instead gone outside to sit under the stars with a boy she couldn’t even have?

She feels sick.

Ambulance sirens are blaring like a banshee from the front yard now and someone is shouting, “Move! Paramedics! Make way!”

Along with the rest of the crowd—half of the party, by now—Betty stumbles back as three paramedics with a stretcher charge up the stairs. She can hear a lot of people murmuring and a lot more people scattering; the police can’t be far behind an ambulance call and she assumes most of them don’t want to be around when they do.

“He’s hypoxic!” One of the paramedics shouts from the top of the stairs. “Pupils dilated! Ready the naloxone!”

“Betty! Betty!” She whips around; Veronica and Archie are weaving their way towards her, hand in hand. Their clothes look a fair bit disheveled, but their faces are very pale as they take in the chaotic scene.

“What the hell is going on?” Archie exclaims, staring up the stairs, where paramedics are still belaying muffled instructions to one another.

“I-I don’t know,” Betty breathes. “It all—”

“Betty, where’s Kevin?” Veronica asks, her eyes breaking wide.

Betty inhales, about to say she’s been worrying the same thing, but a moment later, the boy in question appears through the hallway, a drink in hand and looking ashen-faced. His eyes dart quickly from the three of them to the top of the stairs. “I heard shouting and sirens. What—”

But the police have started arriving, erupting into the room like a bursting dam. “Everybody back up from the stairs!” Sheriff Keller is shouting. “Outside, now!”

A couple of police officers rumble up the stairs and another starts gesturing with his hands for the crowd to disperse.

“Dad, what’s—” Kevin starts, but Sheriff Keller cuts him off with a warning look, glancing briefly at the red solo cup currently in the death grip of Kevin’s hands.

“Not now Kevin. Go outside,” He says sternly.

Mutely, the four of them follow the stream of people pouring into the front yard; there, they’re greeted by the steady, forceful flashes of red light given off by several emergency vehicles. But it’s not just the ambulance and Riverdale police; three large black SUVs with sirens have just pulled up, their breaks screeching ominously as they reach a sudden, haphazard halt.

A group of men and women quickly hurry out. They’re all wearing blue windbreakers with the letters F-B-I printed boldly on the back, carrying various CSI supplies and somber expressions.

“Holy shit,” Archie breathes as the FBI agents start spreading out. A few of them intercept the fleeing partygoers while most of them head straight for the house. “We should get out of here.”

“No way,” Kevin says at once, as if shocked that Archie would suggest otherwise. “My dad already saw us and it’d just make things look worse if we leave.” He gives Betty a once over, nostrils flaring. “Where’s Jughead?”

It’s not concern on his face, she realizes a moment later, but suspicion.

“ _Jughead_ was here?” Archie says, with much surprise. He glances around, as if Jughead was standing beside them and he just hadn’t noticed before. “ _Here_?”

Kevin nods darkly. “Him and a few other Horsemen of the Apocalypse.”

“They left,” Betty says vaguely, but briefly thinks about telling him that it was well-before the party went to hell in a hand basket. She’s surprised at her own instinct to lie to protect Jughead, especially when Joaquin fleeing the scene moments before screams erupted is more than a little significant.

Betty watches the FBI agents start to pull people aside; the investigation seems immediate and Kevin is probably right about how running would make things worse. 

So, they wait.

Veronica wraps her arms around herself and makes a _burring_ sound; Archie draws her against his ribs, but his eyes remain raptly on following the unfolding scene. Betty wonders why she’s not cold, and then realizes she’s still wearing Jughead’s leather jacket. She tucks her chin into it, trying not to dwell on the fact that he’s currently roaring into the chilled night with nothing but a shirt.

After a few moments, an FBI agent comes their way, sliding his arms into a blue windbreaker as he cuts across the lawn. Betty recognizes him as the man in the suit from Pop’s; Agent Dale Cooper, as she’d dubbed him. Up close though, he doesn’t look much like a young Kyle Maclachlan at all. Rather, he has a long, serious face and slickly combed dark blonde hair.

He talks to Kevin first, nodding solemnly as Kevin recounts what he can, while another agent approaches Archie and Veronica and sweeps them away for an interview. After a few minutes, Dale Cooper—or whatever his name is—thanks Kevin and turns to her.

He shows Betty his identification. “Special Agent Charles Drew with the FBI,” he introduces, before flapping the badge wallet shut. He turns his eyes to the notebook at hand; the same notebook she’d seen him scribbling in at Pop’s. “Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?”

Betty nods, resisting the urge to bury herself in Jughead’s jacket. “Who’s hurt? Are they okay?” She blurts before she can stop herself. The memory of Jason’s unfocused eyes as he stared out over the heads of the party flashes in her thoughts.

Agent Drew looks up from his pad. “We’re not releasing any names at this juncture,” he says coolly. “Can I get your name and age?”

“Elizabeth Cooper,” she replies, and he scribbles that down. “I’m fifteen.”

He seems all business, which perhaps is just as well. “Can you describe the events leading up to tonight’s party for me, Miss Cooper?”

“Um, I met up with some friends at the local diner, Pop’s, before coming to the party.” Agent Drew doesn’t move his head, but his eyes flash up for a brief moment before turning back down to his pen; she remembers the brief glance they’d exchanged at the restaurant, and wonders if he recognizes her too. “I didn’t really want to come, but…attendance was mandatory.”

That appears to catch his attention; he glances up at her once more. “How was it mandatory?”

“I’m a cheerleader—” The pen scratches across the paper. “—and my captain always wants us to be seen at events. Parties, homecoming, school stuff. She says it’s part of our social brand.”

“Can I get the name of your cheerleading captain?” He asks.

“Cheryl Blossom,” Betty offers, and Agent Drew duteously writes that down.

“Right. And can you tell me who you saw at the party tonight?”

“Um, well,” Betty starts. Her hands curl into delicate fists, her nails hovering against the unbroken skin. Luckily, Jughead’s jacket is too big on her and the sleeves extend past her fists, shrouding them from sight. She feels a little dizzy. “A few other cheerleaders, Tina Patel and Ginger Lopez. Reggie Mantle. It's his house. My friends that I came with; Kevin Keller, Archie Andrews, Veronica Lodge—”

Agent Drew finally looks up. “Lodge?”

His expression is firmly schooled, but still looks interested. Betty’s breath comes out shakily. “Yes.”

He makes a noncommittal sound and returns to his notebook. “What time did you arrive at the party?”

“About ten. I’m not sure.”

“And did you see anyone else?”

 _Here we go_. Her nails dig into her skin with intent now, hoping the pricks of pain will be enough to steady her thoughts and stave off the oncoming guilt, but she’s definitely not going to lie to the FBI; especially since she knows Jughead didn’t do anything wrong. He had been with her the whole time.

Besides, Kevin will surely already have told Agent Drew about Jughead and Sabrina, and it’ll seem more suspicious for her to omit that.

“Jughead Jones, Sabrina Spellman, and their friend Joaquin. I don’t know his last name. Jughead and I were together for most of the time I was here. Neither of us drink, so we went outside and sat with out feet in the hot tub for a while.”

Pen still scribbling, he asks, “How long?”

“Half an hour? An hour?” Honestly, she has no idea. It felt like a year that she lived in that moment with Jughead, watching the water bubble around their adjoining feet and listening to the dim vibrations of the ongoing party.

“Alright. Did you see anything else that I might want to know? Anyone acting strangely? Any other names you can think of?”

She thinks; truthfully it all feels like a blur, save for the haunting thoughts of Jason’s dazed eyes and Joaquin’s shaky panic. She feels the familiar warm trickle of blood in her palms, but keeps her gaze steadily on Agent Drew.

“Jason Blossom seemed really out of it,” she says finally, watching him carefully to see if the name causes a significant reaction. Mostly, she just wants to know if Jason is the one currently being pumped with oxygen by paramedics, or if it’s already too late. But Agent Drew's face betrays nothing. “Like maybe he was pretty drunk. But…”

“Is Jason related to—” He flips back a page. “—Cheryl Blossom? Your cheerleading captain?”

Betty nods. He makes a note. “They’re twins. There was also…” _Here it comes_. “I saw Jughead’s friend Joaquin a minute before people started screaming. I think he found the person who collapsed. He told us that he’d called 911.”

Agent Drew blinks up, his eyes sharp. “Can you please describe and direct me to this Joaquin?” His voice is very tightly controlled, and Betty has a brief imagination of Jughead muttering in her ear about how far the stick up his ass must go.

She takes a long breath. “He’s average height, has chin-length black hair. But he’s not here. I think he left not long…after.”

The FBI agent drops the pen against the pad of paper, his eyebrows raised. “He called 911 and then fled the scene?”

“I didn’t say that,” Betty says quickly, even though she suspects as much. But she remembers what Jughead said about the way police would never take the word of someone from the south side, and it makes her nervous. She looks down; a droplet of blood has landed on her boot. “I don’t know what happened. Just that I didn’t see him after that.”

Agent Drew hums, considering Betty. He snaps the notebook shut. “Alright, that’s all for now, Miss Cooper. I’m going to have a few follow up questions over the next couple days, so please expect me. Here’s my card if you think of anything else in the mean time.”

She hesitates; her hands are stained with red by now and if she reaches for the card, he’ll see the blood. Luckily, he’s placing his pen back in his breast pocket with care, so she quickly snatches the little card and shoves her hands into the pockets of Jughead’s jacket.

They aren’t empty, she realizes. Something woolly sits in the left pocket where Jughead usually keeps his hand. Agent Drew thanks her, and once he’s gone, Betty slips the card into a small zippered pouch near the shoulder of the jacket and pulls out the fuzzy object.

It’s a small, gray beanie, with sloping ridges that might resemble a crown. She frowns at it, but hastily shoves it back into the pocket once she realizes the hand holding it is visibly shaking. Her whole body starts to quiver once Agent Drew is out of sight; her fingers ball back into fists almost unconsciously, trying to control the tremors.

Her mind spins; she definitely feels light-headed now. Memories of Jason Blossom’s clouded eyes swirls into visions of him sprawled on the floor, nothing more than a body. Flashes of Jughead and Sabrina tearing into the night on dark, winged motorcycles. Music pulsing from across the garden.

She lifts her chin and quietly walks around to the edge of the house, hands balled tightly at her sides.

Jughead’s face, looking so young, as he tried to tell her something she didn’t want to hear. The jets in the hot tub bubbling around their feet, almost touching. Jason, lifeless. Someone screaming. Boiling, churning water. Sirens howling. The party chanting for someone to _chug, chug, chug!_  

And _thump, thump, thump_ of the distant, echoing base. Her heart following in suit.

Her pace quickens the louder her thoughts get, and once she’s rounded the corner, she hastily flattens herself between the wall and a hedge bush and slides down into the soft earth. Desperately she tries to rub the blood from her hands. Her mouth opens and a strangled, choking sound falls out.

Distantly, Betty thinks it might be herself struggling to breathe.

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**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is basically plot fluffer and was originally going to a lot more packed but once i wrote it, i decided the scene really needed some breathing room. promise you'll find out who's hurt in the next chapter. at least we get to meet some new players!
> 
> listening playlist: Harlem River by Kevin Morby has the slinky, spooky noir music that I listen to over and over when writing this story, so i highly recommend checking it out. 
> 
> also, i've reached the end of my pre-written content so no more daily updates. 6 and 7 are well underway but i've got a lot of work this week to do so i'm not sure when the update will be. probably not too long considering a lot of it is already written. 
> 
> please let me know what you thought!! i really really love seeing speculation in the comments and a review always makes me write faster wink wink wink sigh


	7. Chapter 7

Betty, at least, was able to rule out Jason on Saturday morning, when she, without much delicacy, had asked Polly if she’d heard from Jason. Polly said she had; apparently he’d been drunk texting her all night and by breakfast, he’d sent an equal amount of flustered apologies. Her sister had said this all with pursed lips, and Betty filed away the reaction for later.

It’d been a huge relief; if it wasn’t Jason, it wasn’t her fault. Still, it was a reassurance she felt at odds with, given that just because Jason was okay, didn’t mean someone else was.

But she doesn’t have to wait long to find out; the news breaks on Saturday night.

When no one had heard from Moose Mason for twenty-four hours, Reggie Mantle had apparently confirmed it with the football team; he himself had tried resuscitating Moose until the paramedics arrived. Betty found out through Kevin, who already knew, but waited until it was publicly on twitter that Moose had been hurt before passing the news.

“I mean, I saw him like half an hour before,” Kevin says on the phone that night, his voice shaky. “I think he might’ve been trying to get me to have a _threesome_? Like? He was being _so_ weird and out of it. I should’ve known something was up. I was so shocked that I just walked away but what if that was the last…” Kevin sucks in a gulp of air and trails off.

“It’s definitely not your fault, Kev,” Betty says softly, though she thinks about how stressed she’d been about Jason a few hours before and knows words probably mean nothing to Kevin right now. “There was no way you could’ve known.”

“Speaking of…none of us are supposed to know about this, by the way,” he adds, after a minute. His voice is stiff, and Betty can tell he’s probably still beating himself up. “My dad wants to wait for an official press conference. But he told me this morning. It’s…really bad, Betty.”

“Bad how?” Betty rolls over on her bed to grab her diary. She feels a sting of guilt with herself for jumping into journalist mode, but decides the truth is more important than tact. She raises her pencil to the paper.

Kevin pauses, choosing his words. When he speaks, his voice is very small. “He died, Betty. On the way to the hospital.”

She feels all the air leave her lungs and drops her pencil. “He…what? _Died?_ I thought he was just…sick, or something. What happened? How?”

“My dad wouldn’t tell me, but I don’t think it was…uh, natural causes,” Kevin says. “Crap, I hear him coming. I gotta go, Betty. I’ll see you Monday. And don’t tell anyone,” he adds, and then the line is dead.

 _He died_. Kevin’s words echo, almost mockingly. _Moose Mason? Dead?_ It wasn’t as if she knew Moose particularly well, but she’s also known him her entire life. _His_ entire life, she thinks with a sickening crunch to her stomach.

Betty closes her eyes and tries to retrace the moments at the base of the stairs. Joaquin running down the hall, someone yelling that Moose wasn’t breathing, Veronica and Archie arriving, the paramedics upstairs and shouting symptoms…they’d said something, a word she’d heard before. Some kind of medical term, maybe?

She exhales slowly, and when it finally feels like her lungs have nothing left in them, she blinks up at the ceiling. It doesn’t seem real. She saw him in class _yesterday;_ she’d helped him spell the word scholastic. She feels sick. It’s one thing to abstractly investigate accidents and deaths on the other side of town, and it’s another to know someone taken by it.

Nibbling on her lip, she reaches over for her phone. She pulls Jughead up in her contacts and stares at the last conversation they’d had on Friday before the party.

_Alright, I just watched 10 Things I Hate About You. It was so predictable!_

_**That means you liked it :)** _

_Does not_

_**You like predictable** _

_Can we keep the psychoanalysis off the table for once thank you very much_

But then, a few minutes later, he’d sent:

_I guess I see the appeal though_

Betty stares at the exchange. Jughead _does_ like predictability, despite whatever devil-may-care image he’s spent however long finely crafting. He may claim to be a cinema buff and a lover of creative integrity, but almost all of his favorite films have the exact same plot trajectory:

Character enters the mystery, then a reluctant partnership, a death or two halfway through to raise the stakes, followed by a big twist, followed by an ending that is somehow as satisfying as it is bittersweet.

She blinks back to the ceiling. If _her_ life were a film, would last night have been the twist, or was the arc so obvious it couldn’t have been? Was this all foreshadowed by her obsession with finding the truth about the south side? Was this the moment that raised the stakes?

_Or was a boy just dead?_

The thought brings her soundly back into the moment. Her fingers hover over the keyboard of her phone, reading and rereading Jughead’s last text.

What she really wants to say is **_Hey, so what the fuck_** but that feels both too heavy and too joking somehow. Plus she’s not sure he’s ever heard her swear in the first place and the shock alone might distract him from the fact that she’s being serious.

But what would she say? Ask him what the hell Joaquin was doing fleeing the scene of what ended up being a death? That would feel accusatory and she doesn’t want to indict Jughead or even Joaquin of anything. After all Jughead opened up about people from the south side being stereotyped, and she just drops the blame on him or his friends without waiting for the full story?

No, she won’t insult Jughead by insinuating that.

So she settles on **_I still have your leather jacket._** She’s never seen him without it; she likes to imagine he has a closet full of them, like some cartoon character with only one outfit, but given the well-loved scuffing on this one, she doubts it. Anyway, she figures it’ll be easier to talk about this in person than try to navigate via text.

_**Do you want me to bring it to you? Meet at Pop’s?** _

About an hour later, and she still hadn’t gotten a response.

_**Or I’ll just bring it to school on Monday, whatever’s easiest.** _

Still nothing, and reluctantly Betty puts her phone aside to get ready for bed. Is he mad at her? Did she do something wrong? After her panic attack in the bushes of the Mantle mansion, the rest of the night had continued in such a haze that she barely remembers driving everyone home, but she tries to rack her brain for something she might’ve said to Jughead to upset him.

He’d tried to tell her something and she had shut him down, expecting it’d been the long-time-coming talk about boundaries and feelings. But Jughead doesn't seem like a guy who enjoys confrontation, and Betty would think he’d be relieved at dodging the “I have a girlfriend” talk.

Betty wonders if she should just be direct and ask him point blank if he knows anything. She remembers the terror on Joaquin’s face and Sabrina cursing madly down the stairs, but Jughead had seemed just as confused as she had been.

So why was he ignoring her?

She gets under the covers and pulls them tight up against her chin. There’s murmuring downstairs and the creak of her parents moving around, and Betty stares at the stick-on-stars on her ceiling and remembers tracing the constellations in the stars outside the party. She’d felt so happy then, if just for a fleeting moment.

She closes her eyes and thinks about Moose Mason.

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Sunday drags on with glacial pace; this means two things. One: that the town does not yet know that Moose Mason, lovable high school linebacker, everyone’s All-American buddy, is dead.

Two: that, specifically, her mother doesn’t know.

Part of her appreciates the day as the quiet before the storm, because once word reaches her classmates and _especially_ once it reaches her mother and the town paper, it’s going to be hell. The north side of Riverdale has thus far happily kept horse-blinders on, but to lose one of their own is surely going to break the dam, especially if Moose didn't drop dead of his own accord. 

 _Naloxone_.

She sits upright in bed. The word comes to her in a flash, in a blinding memory of chaos and screams. _“He’s hypoxic! Pupils dilated! Ready the naloxone!”_ The paramedic shouted, and Betty blinks. She hasn’t heard that word before, she’s _read_ it.

She picks up her laptop and types it into the search bar. Naloxone, she reads, is the drug administered to people who have overdosed; it’s especially useful for those who OD on fentanyl because it’s so easy to over do and symptoms come on quickly.

 _Moose overdosed_ , she thinks, her mouth falling open. She clam shells her laptop shut and lets out the breath she didn’t know she was holding. _On fentanyl? Moose Mason?_

Fentanyl is not a drug typically found at the keggers of rich kids; it’s rough, and gritty. Cocaine, she could see. Prescription drugs, definitely. But her research has taught her fentanyl is typically cut into heroin, if anything, and that gives Betty pause, but she's not sure if it's her own unconscious prejudice about what an overdose should “look like” or if is this genuinely suspicious. 

She picks up her pencil and diary, her thoughts swirling. But after about ten minutes, Betty realizes she has just been staring at a blank page the whole time, and decides she’s not going to get anywhere with writing out her thoughts today, so she puts it aside and crawls over to her window perch.

Archie is sitting in his chair at his own window, spinning left and right as he juggles a worn-looking football between his hands. He looks up when Betty settles into her own seat, and moves to open his window. She does the same.

“How are you doing?” He asks, settling on his elbows.

With a pang of guilt, Betty realizes she’s been kind of neglectful of her friendship with Archie lately in lieu of time with the newspaper and, if she’s being honest with herself, with Jughead. But Archie has been equally busy with football and music and neither of them have made much of an effort. Betty makes a mental note to set aside some time for him.

“I’m okay,” Betty lies, forcing a light smile. “Thinking about Friday night though.”

“Me too,” Archie says, looking forlorn. “I keep trying to go through the people I saw at the party and the last time I saw them.” He pauses. “Who do you think it was?”

Betty bites her lip. Kevin had told her not to say anything and given the radio silence from Veronica too, she assumes he hasn’t told anyone but her. And she loves Archie, and while he’s decent at keeping secrets on his own, the minute someone presses him on it, he caves. He can’t lie to save his skin and telling him is too risky.

“I don’t know,” she says quietly, deciding not to pass the buck, “but I have a really bad feeling about this, Archie. Like it’s only going to get worse.”

Archie nods. “I feel it too. But I don’t…I don’t know how to explain it. It’s just…this weird heaviness, like it’s in the air or something. Does that make sense?”

It makes more sense than Archie probably realizes. Betty tucks her chin down and nods, glancing across the room to her wardrobe, where Jughead’s jacket is currently hidden, tucked away like some dark, living, breathing secret. She exhales, long and slow, and meets Archie’s gaze one last time. 

 _These violent delights have violent ends_ , she thinks.

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Betty wakes earlier than normal on Monday morning; truthfully, her sleep was fitful and tossing, so it’s not too difficult to roll out of bed at five A.M. and dress for an early run. She slips out of the house and heads out into a jog around the block. She’s exhausted, but her heart hasn’t stopped hammering since Friday, and the anxiety masquerading as adrenaline pushes her steps into long, lean strides.

She pounds into the cement, hoping to chase a burn that will soothe her churning thoughts, but after about forty minutes, she realizes she can’t _literally_ outrun her feelings, and she heads back home.

Her mother is bustling about in the kitchen when she returns. Alice looks up when she hears Betty approaching. “You’re up early,” she says, in the pleased voice she always uses when she’s impressed with Betty pushing herself. “Get a good run in?”

“Yeah,” Betty says, still breathing heavily. “I’m gonna go shower.”

Her mother nods and returns to her morning mantra of preparing pancakes and coffee. Betty watches her mother work for a moment, almost robotically, like some kind of pre- _Feminine Mystique_ housewife going through the motions.

As she's heading up the stairs, Betty hears the phone ring, followed by her mother answering it quietly. _It's a little early for a phone call_ , Betty thinks, but dismisses it once she's out of earshot. 

After her shower, Betty forgoes breakfast and heads straight to school; she wants to get there early, before anyone else, to get some work done on the paper, because she has a feeling that the day is going to be nothing short of a tempest once school starts. The police won’t be able to contain this secret much longer.

When she arrives at the Blue & Gold, she checks her phone again, but there’s still nothing from Jughead. Sighing, she hangs his leather jacket on the coat rack. It’d barely fit in her backpack this morning, and practically weighed as much as her old cat, but there was no way she was gonna let her mother see her sneaking out the door with a big black leather jacket in hand.

Betty sighs and settles down in front of her laptop. She doesn’t really know what she’s looking for, and technically this is just her own theory, but something still feels very suspicious about the combination of an all-star football player and a dangerous drug like fentanyl. She spends the next hour or two reading up about rise in overdoses across the country—there apparently is no shortage of small town horror stories much like their own.

Riverdale isn’t special, she realizes, and then feels naïve for not looking at this as indicative of a larger, national problem. Still, there's not much that reassures her about the conflicting depictions of fentanyl use and the image of Moose Mason. 

After she’s read so many articles that her eyes start to cross, she slams her laptop shut and puts her forehead in her hands. She hears people mulling about outside the room; students have started arriving like a gathering flock of scavenging birds, circling ominously over a wounded animal.

Betty sighs, and decides to use the remaining minutes before the first bell to get a few things out of her locker. When she returns, there’s someone standing in front of the corkboard, and she has a brief moment of relief where she thinks it might be Jughead.

It’s not.

Agent Drew looks over his shoulder at her, his face serious, before glancing once more to the wall of clippings and index cards with theories. His eyes linger on the center card for FENTANYL.

He traces his eyes around the room, moving slowly, and reaches the collection of Nancy Drew novels stacked on a shelf. He runs his fingers over them contemplatively.

“You like Nancy Drew?” He asks with a small smile. Betty returns it awkwardly and nods, her mind still playing catch up with the fact that there’s an FBI agent in her newspaper office. “Me too. I always used to get teased for reading the Nancy books instead of the Hardy Boys, but, well, I liked her best.”

“Because of your last name?” Betty asks, without really thinking first.

“Sort of the other way around,” he says evasively, clearing his throat and straightening. “Anyway. Miss Cooper, when we last spoke, you mentioned a few things I would like to follow up on. Would you mind answering a few more questions for me? We don’t have to go to the station; we can do this right here.”

The first bell tolls between them, but neither move.

“I know my rights, sir,” she says, raising her chin in the air, in an act that looks more defiant than she feels. “You can’t question me without a parent.”

He smiles, and runs a smoothing hand over his already crisp suit jacket. In the warm yellow light of the Blue & Gold office, Agent Drew looks a lot younger and friendlier than he had on Friday night. “Miss Cooper—may I call you Elizabeth?”

“I go by Betty,” she says, in a shaky exhale.

“Betty, then. You’re not under arrest, or even in any trouble. This isn’t a custodial setting and we can stop at any time. If there were charges being laid, of course we would have a parent or a guardian present, but I just have a few qualifying questions, if you don’t mind.”

She shifts from one foot to another. He looks at her, eyebrows creasing. “Gauging from the generous collection of mystery novels and the set up on that corkboard, I get the sense that you’re someone looking for the truth. Well, I am too. That’s why I’m here.”

She considers him. She thinks about what Jughead would say if he were here; probably warn her about not trusting authority figures or something with a casual conspiracy theory about capitalist police states.

But Jughead _isn’t_ here, and has been ignoring her for days now. Why should she care what he’d say? She stares at the coat rack where she’d hung his leather jacket this morning, thinking he’d want it back today.

“If you would like anyone here with you, you are more than welcome to it, and I’ll happily wait,” he adds, with a small smile.

“No, it’s okay,” she says hesitantly. Despite a growing wariness of law enforcement ever since Jughead entered her life, there is something trustworthy about Agent Drew. He doesn’t seem any less business-like, but in the light of day, he has almost a paternal air to him, despite the fact that he can’t be more than in his late 20s.

Agent Drew crosses the room to the door, which he closes gently. Betty takes her usual seat, and he slips into the one across from her; the place where Jughead usually sits. She’d been upset that he’d skipped school again today, but now she’s desperately hoping he doesn’t change his mind and stays away.

He hauls a heavy-looking briefcase onto the desk, and begins sorting through it. He pulls out a manila folder and that familiar little black notebook, and aligns them together so that they’re perfectly straight and parallel.

He opens up the folder and clears his throat. “As this information will be released to the public shortly, if not already, I should tell you that Mr. Marmaduke Mason, otherwise known as Moose, passed away in the early hours of Saturday morning.”

He glances up at Betty, watching her carefully for her reaction, so Betty feigns shock, her mouth falling open. She’s not sure she convinces him, because he narrows his eyes before moving on.

“This morning I received the toxicology report from the autopsy of Mr. Mason,” he says, and Betty feels a shiver at the word _autopsy_. “And, along with a few other things, there was a fair amount of the opioid known as fentanyl in his system. Now that I’m seeing your…er, corkboard, I’m wondering if you have anything you’d like to share with me in that regard. What made you suspect the overdoses on the south side were linked to fentanyl? As far as I know, that wasn’t published anywhere.”

“My friend Jughead suggested it,” Betty says cautiously. “He works with me on the school paper.”

“Ah,” Agent Drew sighs, opening up his little notebook and flipping through it. “Right, right. Mr. Jones. I ran the names that you gave me, and unfortunately, it poses a bit of a dilemma. That’s why I’m here, actually.”

Betty bristles. He reaches back into his briefcase and withdraws an identical envelope. He scans his eyes over the papers briefly and begins to read.

“Joaquin DeSantos, the one who you said placed the first 911 call, has been arrested on multiple accounts of vandalism over the years. Sabrina Spellman has been in so many fights it’s amazing she’s still upright. And your friend Jughead Jones was once held in juvenile court for apparently trying to burn down his elementary school.”

He puts the folder down and crosses his arms over it. “All three are known Southside Serpents. I’m afraid that doesn’t bode well, given I’ve learned they fled the scene shortly after Mr. Mason was found and that Mr. DeSantos was seen leaning over Mr. Mason by a witness.”

He looks up at Betty, and she’s surprised to see he looks more resigned than anything.

 _Known Serpent_ , she thinks. _All three are known Southside Serpents_ , she hears Agent Drew’s voice echoing. _Trying to burn down his elementary school_.

That couldn’t be right. Why hadn’t Jughead told her? How could he have kept that from her? Did he think she’d _care_? Judge him?

She feels hurt—beyond hurt, maybe—but she doesn't have time to unpack that. She tries to keep her attention on Agent Drew. Her nails breach the skin of her palms in an attempt at focusing.

“That might all be true, sir, but I don’t think it’s them or the Serpents who are selling the fentanyl. I think they’ve been getting targeted for refusing to. There have been a lot of motorcycle accidents and people being run off the road, and bricks going through windows, and—”

“Betty, please,” Agent Drew says calmly. “I’m not accusing the Southside Serpents of anything. To be frank with you, I know that the local police department here would very much like it to be that simple. It’d be a neat little bow to tie everything together and would get the mayor’s office off their backs. I’m a bit of an unpopular guy right now for suggesting otherwise, but I agree with you in that there seems to be a pattern here.”

He sighs, and busies himself with readjusting his files. “But I’ve gotten very off topic. Betty, the reason I actually wanted to speak with you today is because of your friend Veronica Lodge.”

Betty blinks. She pauses, not sure she’s heard him right. “What?”

“Betty, are you aware that Veronica’s father is currently awaiting trial in a federal penitentiary?” He asks, pen poised over the notebook once more.

“I mean…yeah, but for like, tax evasion, right? It’s not like he was arrested for murder.”

Agent Drew smiles, but it’s more of a grimace than anything. “That would be Al Capone. Though that’s not too far off base,” he adds, more to himself. He immediately looks frustrated with himself, and sighs, straightening. “Betty, has Veronica ever mentioned anything about her father to you?”

It’s one thing to help Agent Drew with the investigation into Moose’s death, and it’s another to start pointing fingers at her friends. She opens her mouth to tell him just that, but doesn’t get a chance to, because the door flies open with such a force that both of them jump in their seats.

“Elizabeth, stop talking,” someone says, and Betty looks up to see her mother storming across the room. She throws her purse down on a desk, her face red with rage. “Who the hell do you think you are, questioning my daughter without a parent or a lawyer in the room?”

Betty scrambles to her feet. “Mom, what the hell?”

Agent Drew bolts upright from his chair just as fast. “Ma’am, please, I just had a few questions for your daughter regarding my investigation. It’s perfectly within legal realms. I assure you she is in no trouble; I informed her that she had the option of awaiting guardianship—”

“I’d like to see some credentials,” Alice snaps. “And get your name, so that I can report it to your supervisor immediately.”

“Of course,” Agent Drew says, and quickly retrieves his identification badge. “Special Agent Charles Drew with the FBI.”

Alice stares at Agent Drew for a long, hard moment, her expression odd and pinched.

“Mom, how did you even know he was here?” Betty asks, and it’s as if a spell was broken. Alice inhales and turns to her daughter.

“I happened to have a meeting with Principal Weatherbee today regarding Homecoming. He mentioned to me that the FBI were on the grounds conducting interviews and, well, I saw you two through the door window.”

Betty knows her mother well enough to read between the lines; that means her mother pressed Weatherbee into a corner for information and then she immediately went stalking off for a scoop.

Alice turns to Agent Drew with appraising eyes. “What exactly _is_ the nature of your investigation?”

He exhales. “I’m sorry Mrs. Cooper, I’m afraid I can’t speak to the details of an ongoing case, beyond the fact that I’m now the primary investigator into Mr. Mason’s death this weekend.”

The revelation that a student died doesn't seem to shock Alice particularly, which means she must've learned about it this morning. _The phone call_ , Betty thinks dimly.

Betty looks at her. Her mother seems stuck between a rock and a hard place, perhaps warring with her instinct to needle for information and her desire to shelter her daughter from it. “And just how long has the FBI been involved here?” She asks, squinting at him.

“Details of the case will be made public after it’s closed, or until otherwise seen fit,” Agent Drew says, almost robotically. “Mrs. Cooper, I’ve done my research into this town, and I am aware that you and your husband run the town’s local newspaper, so unfortunately, you’ll have to wait for an official press conference to get your questions in.”

His lips twitch, just barely, and Betty realizes that actually might’ve been a joke.

“Fine,” Alice sniffs. “Now, if you have any more questions for my daughter, you can contact our lawyer. You’re done here.”

Agent Drew doesn’t seem particularly surprised that this is the conclusion of a helicopter parent storming into his interview. He gives her one last studying look before packing up his briefcase. “I’ll be in touch,” he says, and slips away.

Alice turns her eyes on Betty. “What was he asking you about?” She asks sharply. “I heard him mention Veronica Lodge’s name. I told you what I think of that girl. She’s not your friend.”

“Stop it!” Betty shouts. “You don’t even know her! Why are you so obsessed with this…witch-hunt with her and her family, when you should be talking about what’s really going on in this town?”

Alice crosses her arms and looks over at the corkboard. “What’s really going on in this town? You mean your flirtation with the high school newspaper? Elizabeth, please. Those gangbangers don’t care about you or any of us; why would you care about them? They made their bed and they’ll sleep in it as far as I’m concerned.”

Betty stares at her mother with horror. “Why are you _like_ this?” She asks after a moment. “I mean, god Mom, what did they ever do to you?”

Alice just presses her lips together and looks back at the corkboard, her eyebrows creasing.

“People like you treat them like second-class citizens but they’re just as much part of Riverdale as we are. Just because they don’t fit into your Stepford fantasy doesn’t mean they aren’t,” Betty says, raising her chin into the air.

Her mother scoffs, though she looks noticeably ruffled. “Betty, please, this is hardly so Shakespearean. We’re not Capulets and Montagues. I’m perfectly sure there are some good people on the south side, but the fact of the matter is, I can say with certainty that a lot of them _are_ gangbanging drug dealers. You of all people should know that by now, after what happened on Friday night, but you’ll see tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” Betty repeats. “What’s happening tomorrow?”

“Your father and I are running a story about this boy’s death and the little Serpent that was seen standing over his body,” Alice says, staring out the window. She glances back at Betty sharply. “Or is that not what happened?”

“That—that’s you twisting it!” Betty sputters. “We don’t have all the facts, we have no idea what happened or how Moose got the drugs. You know, Jughead _said_ —”

“Jug-head? Who is Jug-head?”

Betty realizes her mistake immediately. “He’s…he works with me on the school paper.”

“What an unusual name,” her mother muses suspiciously. “Hard to think there’s more than one Jughead in this town. Would he be the same Jughead Jones of south-side-proper that Reggie Mantle listed as being at the party?”

“He had nothing to do with what happened to Moose,” Betty says quickly. “He was with me all night.”

Alice’s eyes widen, and Betty realizes her mistake. “Not like that. We were just talking, okay? But I know he didn’t do anything.” Her mother hums; she has the same expression that Betty makes when she’s filing something away for later.

Then she sighs, her whole posture deflating a little.

“Betty, you do remember that Reggie Mantle’s father owns half the share of the _Register_ , correct? And then there’s party thrown by his son, apparently unbeknownst to them, and it ends in a boy’s death. Needless to say, it doesn’t look good for an upstanding family to have an overdose under their roof.”

Betty stares at her mother. “But...”

“Do you _realize_ the kind of pressure Mr. Mantle is putting on us to write about the culprits who dealt the drugs or brought them onto his property?” Alice snaps, looking suddenly very tired. 

“But that doesn’t mean you should just start scapegoating the easiest target—”

Her mother turns to her, arms crossed. Her icy resolve seems to be melting a bit as she straightens.

“Betty, you wanted us to start talking about overdoses and drugs, and now we are. You wanted us to talk about the south side, and now we are. You don’t always get what you want the _way_ you want it,” she says, and Betty is surprised to find the softness there, nestled in between a thoughtful frown.

Alice turns her attention back to the window. She almost looks sad now. “There are things I never wanted for you, honey, but I had to learn my lesson about Pandora’s box the hard way. And it seems you do too.”

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**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it was with a heavy heart that i had to kill off moose, but if jason were to live, someone else had to die. at least in this story. i wrestled with it but it felt like a necessary choice, for reasons that unfold. congrats to the people who guessed it was him!
> 
> i meant to include jughead and betty interacting in this chapter but there was no easy way to get to that part without the chapter being like 7k+ words. 
> 
> and a lot of angst happens when betty confronts jughead and it was just feeling too heavy and cluttered. but luckily 7 is written, so it'll be up tomorrow. 
> 
> i hope you guys are still enjoying the story! please let me know what you thought with a review, it really means the world to me!


	8. Chapter 8

Betty decides halfway through the morning that she isn’t going to be able to focus on her classes with Agent Drew’s words taunting her all day.

 _Known Southside Serpent_.  _Known Southside Serpent_.  _Known Southside Serpent_.

In the back of her mind, she knows Jughead owes her nothing, especially not an explanation. He clearly has some trust issues and she’s not entitled to his secrets. She _knows_ this, and tries telling herself this over and over throughout her morning classes.

But it doesn’t work. Running the risk of dramatics, it honestly feels like every emotion she's ever had has been building to this exact moment. She feels like the naive girl with the too-pink room and the big doe eyes; and that girl has been taken advantage of one too many times.

Jughead _lied_ to her, as if he didn’t think she could handle the truth, or maybe he didn't trust her, or perhaps something crueler and more taunting than she wants to allow herself to believe. But the thought of someone she—the thought of _Jughead_ being just another person who sees her as nothing more than a little innocent blonde thing feels like the straw that broke the camel’s back. 

Betty has felt, for lack of a better word, _seeded_ with something since the summer. Something angry, or something forbidding. And the further she gets into this investigation, the more light it gets, the more it grows, like bones to roots and veins to vines.

She doesn't want to be invisible. She doesn't want to be nice. She doesn't want to be the silly little girl she's spent her whole life grooming herself to be. She wants truth. She wants justice. She wants _accountability_.

People need to pay for who they’ve hurt.

Now, it’s like that dark flower is finally blooming. She feels betrayed, and _hurt_ , and the desire for confrontation is all-consuming and overpowering, like a sweet and sickly perfume filling her thoughts with nothing but a quest for answers. 

So she corners Kevin at his locker after fourth period.

“Hey Kev,” she says, just as he is trading out his morning books for the later ones, deliberately trying to keep her voice light. “Just wondering, has your dad ever mentioned to you a popular…Southside Serpent hangout spot? Like a bar, or something?”

“Wow,” Kevin says, after staring at her for a moment. He shuts his locker. “You’re not even trying to be subtle anymore. You know, I think I kind of prefer it this way; at least you’re not insulting my intelligence. But nice try. I’m definitely not telling you that.”

“Why not? It’s for purely journalistic intentions,” she says, rolling her eyes to the ceiling.

“Because you’ve got a really weird look in your eye and it’s freaking me out,” Kevin says, shuffling back a little to get a better look at her. “Besides, why can’t you just ask your Southside boyfriend?”

Betty exhales. The last thing she wants right now is to defend herself against another accusation of secretly dating Jughead. “He’s not my boyfriend, for the last time. And I’d ask him myself, but…it’s complicated. I haven’t heard from him since Friday and I need to talk to him.”

“He _was_ suspiciously absent from chem today,” Kevin muses. “I tried saying _Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice_ , but he didn’t appear.”

She blows out a long breath, feeling impatient again. “Very funny.”

“Isn’t it? I thought of that one a few days ago. Been waiting for an opportunity to use it.”

“Kevin,” Betty sighs. “Come on. I know that you’re still feeling responsible for what happened to Moose.”

He looks away, crossing his arms, but doesn't refute her. 

“You shouldn’t.” He meets her gaze. “It’s not your fault. It’s not any of our faults. This is bigger than us, and bigger than him. It wasn’t an accident, or a coincidence. Something dark is going on in this town and I need to know _what_ so that we can stop it from happening again. I don’t want Moose to have died for nothing. You can help me get justice for him.”

“Betty, a couple of teenagers aren’t going to fix a town-wide drug problem, okay? My dad—”

“I’m really sick of people telling me what I can’t do," Betty says quietly, shaking her head to herself. “So I’m  _doing_ something about this. I’m going to the south side with or without your information, and then I’ll just wander around until I find something that fits the bill. So what’s really the safer option here? Telling me where it is or letting me go around knocking on every door until I find the right biker watering hole?”

“Fine, fine. You know, for the record, I’m all for this new Betty the Warrior Princess, but I’m not a big fan of being on the receiving end of it,” Kevin says, putting his hands in the air. “I think it’s called the Whyte Wyrm. W-y-r-m. My dad’s always breaking up fights over there and complaining about it. But, Betty—”

She’s already plugged it into her phone and is readying to break for it when Kevin puts his hand on her shoulder. “Please be careful, okay? And text me when you get home so I don’t go to bed thinking I have your blood on my hands?”

She reaches up and squeezes his hand, and for a brief moment, her mind clears. “I promise. I will.”

.

.

.

She gets a few passing, incredulous looks—she just _had_ to wear her pinkest embroidered collar today, apparently—as she storms through the Whyte Wyrm, but the anger is turning her steps into stomps and she doesn’t care.

She spots Jughead towards the back of the bar, past the incredibly gratuitous snake tank, where he’s playing pool with Sabrina, an older woman, and a couple other kids their age she doesn’t recognize.

His back is to her, and Betty gets a good, long look at the leather jacket he’s replaced the one in her grip with and it feels like a slap in the face all over again. It’s newer, darker, and a lot nicer looking, with a distinct emerald green Southside Serpent patch on the back. She stares into the eyes of the two-headed snake while Jughead says something that makes the group of them laugh. 

“Jug—” Sabrina starts warningly, seeing Betty approach. 

“Thought you might want this back,” she says coldly, dumping the leather jacket onto the pool table. It makes a heavy _thump_ and his smile drops in a flash when he turns to face her. “But I see you’ve already got a new one.”

 _“Betty?”_ He hisses, looking alarmed. He rushes forward, hands on her shoulders, almost as if he’s planning on forcibly pushing her out the door. “What are you doing here?”

“Getting answers, since you wouldn’t give me any,” she snaps hotly, her fingers burning with pain as they dig into her palms. “So you _are_ a Serpent.”

Jughead blanches. “I didn’t want you to find out this way—” He starts, his voice already running desperate and panicked.

Betty rolls her eyes, pushing him away. “Do you think I’m an idiot, Jughead? You think I can’t put two and two together? You’re not exactly subtle, sulking around in a leather jacket and riding off into the sunset on a motorcycle. No, what I couldn’t figure out is why you didn’t tell me, when you knew—you _knew_ —that it could make all the difference for the paper!”

Jughead opens and closes his mouth. “We can go outside and talk about this.”

But Betty barely even registers the words as fury and hurt and betrayal catch up with her again. She’s pacing now. “I actually convinced myself you weren’t a Serpent, and you know why? Because I thought, ‘no, Jughead would’ve told me.’ I don’t know why. Maybe I am an idiot.”

He looks like a kicked dog. “I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to look at me like you are now,” he says quietly, eyes on his shoes.

“Seriously?” Her fingers curl and uncurl into themselves reflexively. “That’s the best you got? Bullshit. After everything with the paper, after everything I’m doing to tell the truth? What, did you think I couldn’t handle it? Couldn’t stomach the truth? Stop lying to me, Jughead.”

It might be the first time she’s ever sworn around him, and briefly, he looks almost impressed with her fury. Then he remembers himself and hesitantly drops his gaze again. 

“I’ve never lied to you,” he says in a half-whisper.

Betty laughs, but it’s an empty, strangled sound. “Omitting the truth is the same thing as lying, Jughead.”

He doesn’t seem to have an answer to that. She catches her breath, and the wind is gone, replaced with a deep, hollow sadness. Is this really what he thinks of her?

And if so, is she doing anything to prove him wrong?

She looks at him; his face has fallen and he's staring at her with needled eyebrows. She swallows.

“I don’t know what I did to give you such a low opinion of me. I mean, if you really think being a Serpent would change anything about the way I—I see you…” she says emptily, not sure how to finish the thought without revealing herself. “But I also trusted that you wouldn’t keep something like this from me, so obviously we don’t know each other at all.”

She inhales noisily, and tries to blink away the tears stinging at her eyes. “I’m gonna go. This was a mistake.”

His hand falls onto her shoulder; she keeps her fist tightly clenched to keep the blood from peeking out on her fingertips. A quiet desperation has crawled over his face. “Betty, please, just let’s talk. I want to explain. Please don’t go. You have no idea the way I…how I… _feel_ about you—”

There’s a moment of her heart fluttering madly against her skin before righteous indignation sets in. Betty stares at him, shocked, and jerks her arm away. She glances at Sabrina, who is leaning against her pool cue and watching this unfold with eyebrows into her hairline.

“How dare you say something like that to me when your girlfriend is right there!” She hisses, throwing her unclenched hand towards the pool table.

There’s a long pause. “Wait, what?” Sabrina asks dully.

Jughead’s eyes close with a palpable cringe. Sabrina’s pool cue clatters to the ground. “Fuck,” he mutters, but Sabrina is already rounding on him.

“Did you tell her I was your fucking girlfriend?” Sabrina seethes, poking Jughead forcefully in the chest. He stumbles back, a mixture of resignation and frustration warring over his face.

“I didn’t. Technically,” he mumbles.

Betty scoffs. “You let me think she was!”

“What the hell, Jug?” Sabrina yells, and continues to shove at him. “You of all people should know I’m not gonna be anyone’s fucking _beard!_ What kind of mouth-breathing sycophantic bull—”

“I push people away, alright!” Jughead shouts, and Sabrina stills. “I’m a self-destructive asshole who is terrified of a good thing! And why the fuck wouldn’t I be! Almost everyone I’ve ever cared about is either six feet under or six hundred miles away! Or maybe Jughead Jones and his Kerouac melodrama didn’t want to invite someone else to his pity party! Is that what you want to hear?”

He turns to look at Betty, chest heaving.

“People are _dying_ and the Serpents are getting threats every other week and my dad is breathing down my neck and I _burn_ everything I touch and I just…didn’t want to bring you into all this shit. No one deserves that. I meant to tell you, Betty. I tried, the night of the party. But then shit just got deeper and I just...couldn’t handle it. I didn’t want this for you.”

“That’s not your decision to make,” she says. Her breath comes out a little shaky but she stands her ground, tipping her chin up. A part of her wants to rush forward and reassure him, but another part of her is still so hurt she can barely see straight; and that part keeps her rooted to the spot.

Jughead nods fervently. “I know, I know. It’s some white knight toxic masculinity shit I gotta work through.”

He runs his hands through his hair, taking a long, steadying breath. When he looks up, the fight seems to have left him and his eyes are dark and defeated. “I only let you think I was dating Sabrina because it was easier than staying away from you.”

Betty gapes at him. She opens her mouth, but closes it when she realizes she has no idea what to say.

_“Elizabeth.”_

Ice runs into Betty’s veins. She spins around to face the stony eyes of Alice Cooper, pastel cardigan and all against the backdrop of a biker bar. “Come with me. Now.”

“Mom?” Betty hisses. “Did you follow me here?”

Alice juts her chin into the air in a move Betty recognizes as her own. “I turned on Find My Phone after the school called me. You skipped a student council meeting and several classes, and thought no one would notice? I was worried you’d do something reckless, and for good reason, I can see. A _biker bar_ , Elizabeth? Do you _have_ a death wish? Come on. We’re leaving.” She makes to grab Betty’s arm, but freezes as another voice cuts through the room.

“Aw, so soon, Zelly? You just got here.” The older woman they had been playing pool with pushes off the table. Betty gets a better look at her; she has wild blonde curls piled onto the top of her head and a familiar smile, though it’s currently twisted into something cold.

Alice doesn’t move. “Don’t call me that, Hilda,” she says in a voice like galvanized steel.

“You know, I don’t remember being this dramatic as a teenager. I mean, _you_ definitely were, but I never really got it,” the woman, Hilda, smiles mirthlessly. “But I think I do now. It’s actually kind of inspiring, watching these kids air their grievances. Seems really…what’s the word? Cathartic?”

Betty looks at her mother and sees that she’s trembling. “I’m not doing this now. Betty, come with me.”

But Betty crosses her arms so that her mother can’t drag her away, and stands her ground. “No, no. You know what? I’ve had more than enough secrets for one day. I want to hear what this woman has to say.”

Hilda gestures to Alice with an open palm. “It’ll sound better coming from you, Zelda,” she offers, looking genuine.

“It’s _Alice_ , for the last time!” Her mother breaks, rounding on Hilda. “ _Alice_. That is the name I chose, that is the _life_ I chose. You need to accept that. And you do _not_ get to drag me back into your black hole of selfishness and biker warfare in one night! Now, I’m taking my daughter, and we’re going.”

“ _I’m_ selfish?” Hilda laughs vacantly. “What about when Eddie and Diana died? What about when Sabrina needed her family and you pretended we didn’t exist?”

Sabrina inhales sharply. Alice looks as though she’s been slapped, but hardens all the more for it. “Please. I sent you money, even paid for Sabrina’s hellish indulgences with the occult—”

Hilda’s lip curls. “It’s always about money for you, isn’t it? Shed your skin the minute the nice rich kid looked your way. Tell me, Zelda, has it been everything you wanted? Worth what you gave up? _Who_ you gave up for that man?”

“Shut _up_ , Hilda,” her mother snaps, eyes rimmed red. She turns to Betty, and she’s never seen her mother look so scared. “Betty. I mean it. Come with me now.”

In her shock, Betty has forgotten her fists and the blood staining her skin. She hears Jughead’s breath catch behind her.

“Betty…you’re bleeding,” he says, grabbing for her hand. He starts to inspect it, but she rips it away with a force she didn’t think she was capable of.

She meets his eyes, and doesn’t want to interpret the shape of them. She can barely acknowledge this terrible habit she has to _herself_ , let alone stand to see it reflected in the face of Jughead. So she folds up, and allows her mother to lead her out of the bar.

She feels Jughead watching her go. She doesn’t look back.

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**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bum bum bum!
> 
> this was a theory i came up with when i was developing Sabrina. i wasn't intending for her to be such a big player originally, but as i was building this universe, i wanted to create an inverse of Betty and Archie for Jughead. i didn't want to make anyone up, and Sabrina felt like an obvious option since i was obsessed with her as a kid. 
> 
> so i built her backstory for my own characterization but I wasn’t planning on using much of it, but then i started thinking about Alice and the hints we have about her history as a Southside girl and her similarities with the character of Zelda (traditionally the “uptight” sister) and...yo, i just love a good familial reveal twist; i did just spend the last 6 years with OUAT, after all. 
> 
> once I decided on the connection between Alice and Sabrina, she had to have a relationship with Betty too, right? so that’s a bit more to come, as well as more p-p-p-plot, betty's mental health issues, and lot of long emotional talks about FEELINGS. boy am i excited for the feelings.
> 
> also, might be a little bit for the next update. i'm thinking of this story like the show, so this is a bit of my "midseason finale" while i take a little break to make sure everything moves smoothly in the second half. but i'm also really excited to write this and the wait won't be too long. 
> 
> i'm not above begging, so please please let me know what you thought with a review, as i've been very excited to get to this particular shit show and i still get anxious about posting my writing and it makes my day to see a response and def makes me write faster!
> 
> anyway one day my author notes won't be so heinously long


	9. Chapter 9

Once the Whyte Wyrm is out of sight, Betty lets out a breath so long that it feels like there’s no air left in her lungs. She feels exhausted. Anger has a sentience, she realizes as she feels it leaving her, like closing a door in her mind with a soft _click_.

But now it knows it’s way in. Now it has a key. It feels alive, humming like the pitch of a finger circling the rim of a glass the way a vulture circles it’s dying meal.

Like Persephone and the pomegranate, she’s eaten the dark fruit of her own accord and knows she will one day have to return to hell.

 _But not this moment_ , she thinks, squeezing her eyes shut tight.

When she finally opens her eyes, Betty looks over at her mother. Her knuckles are white against the steering wheel and her body trembles with a barely contained rage. But it’s fear, Betty then realizes with a pang, not anger.

“Mom, pull over,” Betty says softly.

“We’re almost home,” Alice replies coolly, sniffing, and Betty realizes her mother might’ve been crying.

“No, Mom, pull over, I mean it,” Betty says, summoning a force that seems to work. Alice blinks at her, then steers the car off the road.

She cuts the engine. “What is it, Elizabeth?” She asks impatiently.

Betty gives her mother a flat look, which softens into worry as Alice squirms slightly under her gaze. Never in her life has she ever known her mother to _squirm_. “Can we talk about what happened back there? Who is that woman?”

“Betty—”

“Mom, we have to stop keeping secrets from each other. It’s drowning us,” Betty says quietly. “Polly has been acting like Ingrid Bergman in _Gaslight_ since I got back, you and dad are always fighting over stupid stuff, and I…I’ve been feeling like there’s this darkness in the town and it’s seeping in through the house and there’s nowhere left that’s safe. We always sweep things under the rug and then we cycle through it again. I can’t keep pretending nothing’s wrong. Please, _please_. Tell me.”

“The world is a dark place; far darker than you know,” Alice says, scanning her eyes across her daughter’s face. “I only ever wanted to protect you from it.”

“Sheltering me from the truth only makes me want it more,” Betty replies, her voice soft but unyielding.

Alice runs her hands over her face. She’s silent for a long moment, clearly warring with herself.

“I was born Zelda Spellman,” she says finally. She raises her head with dignity, despite the red at her eyes. “On the south side of town. Alice is my middle name. That woman in the bar, Hilda, is my sister.”

“Your sister? You always said you didn’t have any family left,” Betty says, knitting her eyebrows together.

Alice lets out a breath that is long and shaky and almost a laugh. “I don’t,” she says firmly. “I haven’t seen or spoken with Hilda in over a decade, beyond checks in the mail or the spare letter asking for more money.”

Then she moves to start the engine again. “Okay? Now you know. Let’s go home.”

Betty’s hand falls onto her mother’s arm and squeezes it gently. “That’s not the whole story.”

Alice closes her eyes and holds them there for a long moment. When she finally looks at Betty, the expression on her face is like nothing Betty would’ve thought her mother capable of. Her eyes are puffy and heavy with swallowed emotion; she seems utterly scrubbed raw.

Alice turns away, nestling her fist under her chin and using that elbow to lean against the car window.

There is a long silence filled only with the sound of cars passing them on the road and the hushed murmurings of dusk.

“My father died when I was three. My mother always had a string of uncouth and unscrupulous boyfriends who were either too out of it or a little too attentive. It was me, Hilda, and our older brother Eddie. He moved out on his eighteenth birthday, the minute the clock struck midnight. He was sweet, protective, and meant well, but…he had long been a Serpent and had responsibilities to his gang before us.

“I _hated_ them for it. They took my brother and left me in a house with a mother too preoccupied with finding a fix to make dinner, and the strange, wandering men who drifted in after her.”

“But, Hilda—” Betty starts.

“I still had her. Hilda was my mother, my sister, and my best friend. She took care of me when Eddie moved out. For a while, that was enough.”

Alice pauses, and runs a perfectly manicured finger along the curve of the steering wheel. The movement is smooth, but her mother’s eyes are red with unshed tears. She seems to be choosing her words very carefully.

“But when I turned twelve and Hilda fifteen, the Serpents came knocking for her too. I heard them talking through the window; those bastards had the nerve to send Eddie as their emissary, even after they’d taken him from us. He had this big speech, all about the help he’d given to kids like us, kids with deadbeat parents who needed a little direction and support. They’d helped him when our dad died and now he’d returned the favor. He told her she could make a difference with the Serpents.”

Alice shakes her head with almost imperceptible rage.

“I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. You know how our father died? He was in a motorcycle accident, riding around through the woods without a helmet. A stupid man who died in a stupid way because of this stupid gang. He wouldn’t be dead if it weren’t for them.”

Betty exhales, watching her mother’s shoulders rising and falling with her breath. 

“It’s all a trap, of course. The Serpents are too busy for their own kids, so they divvy out support. Parade it around like some big happy family unit. Shower these children with gifts and the attention they desperately crave. But every kid they recruit is a kid whose fate they’ve sealed. Southside _Wolves_ would be a more apt name. They kill the sheep and then raise their lambs for slaughter.”

Betty has no idea what to say to that. Is this going to be Jughead’s origin story too? Is this why he wouldn’t tell her anything about it? She thinks about what he told her on Friday night at the hot tub, his voice quiet over the bubbling water.

_My dad’s friend died. Overdose. He was a good guy; used to help out around when my dad had to work, and stuff._

“Your father was…a Serpent too?”

“Oh yes,” Alice chuckles mirthlessly. “There weren’t as many of them then, there have been Serpents as long as Riverdale has been around.”

“So…Hilda…”

“Hilda didn’t become a Serpent,” Alice says tightly. “Not right away. She said that she had to take care of me before anyone else. She said wouldn’t leave me alone in that house.”

Her mother’s voice catches and she rubs delicately at her eyes to break the moment, as if refusing to let it exist a moment longer.

“But on the last day of junior high, I was sitting on the bleachers waiting for Hilda to pick me up. She was late, but she always was. I had some time to think. I was starting at the big high school next year—the town was smaller then, there was only one high school—and I felt…I felt…well, I knew where my life was going. Which is to say, nowhere.”

Alice pauses to let out a long breath. “I was losing Hilda a little more every day. One afternoon she came home wearing her boyfriend’s Serpent jacket, said she’d borrowed it because she was cold, but the look on her face…she loved it.

“I knew they’d come for me next. They like legacies. Makes it look more like a family,” Alice spits. “I’d lost my father, my brother, and inevitably my sister to them, and I wasn’t going to let that happen to me. But I had no way out. So waiting for Hilda that day, I created this…fantasy about a girl named Alice Spellman.

 _“Alice’s_ mother made apple pies and _Alice’s_ father never stumbled into her room in the middle of the night saying he was lost. Alice had the right boyfriend, the right clothes. Alice was a cheerleader and a prom queen and was so mind-numbingly _normal_ that she thought stealing a bracelet from the mall was the pinnacle of rebellion.”

Her mother laughs, but it’s a smothered, bitter sound.

“I didn’t want to be Zelda. I didn’t want to carry her with me every day, from class to class and then on and on for the rest of my life. Zelda had nothing. Alice could have anything,” her mother says, with a voice like glass.

Finally, she looks at Betty, her face set back into the fierce determination she knows her mother wears like a fine set of pearls.

“So I got a summer job, saved up some money, bought myself new clothes, and started going by Alice. It took a while for the Southside kids to start calling me the name I wanted, but anyone who now mattered to me didn’t know me as anyone else. I met your father, and things fell into place.”

“That’s it?” Betty asks, after a long pause. “You just…became another person?”

“No, I became the person I wanted to be,” Alice says firmly. “This is who I always was. People don’t change, honey. I just took the only opportunity that I was going to get.”

There’s a momentary intermission as Alice seems to return to the past, her eyes glazing over slightly as they look to something beyond the road.

“Hilda was furious with me, said I’d betrayed everything she stood for and threw away my dignity for scraps from the rich man’s table. She couldn’t understand; to her, the Serpents weren’t the enemy. Riverdale was. So she became a Serpent, and I became Homecoming Queen.”

“So you got what you wanted,” Betty says quietly.

“No,” Alice replies sharply. “No, Betty. When I told you that you don’t always get what you want the way you want it, I meant that. There are _always_ strings.”

Betty exhales noisily, considering this. Thus far, her mother’s cryptic advice has turned out to be more on the nose than she’d like to admit. Jughead himself had warned her about this the day they met, if albeit in his roundabout and evasive way.

She feels his studying eyes on her, even in her memory.

_What if you don’t like what you find?_

She rubs at her temples, trying to scrub him from her thoughts. “So…Sabrina is my cousin? Eddie was her father?”

This makes a lot of sense in hindsight; Betty had first thought that Sabrina had made friendly overtures just because she was Jughead’s girlfriend—as Betty had been led to believe—and wanted to either extend the friendship or keep an eye on the amount of time she spent with Jughead. But now…Sabrina must’ve already known they were related.

Alice nods. “Yes. But I haven’t seen her—or Hilda—since his funeral. He and his wife died about ten years ago. Motorcycle accident, of course. It’s nothing if not a cycle.” Her lips pull back in a thin, mirthless smile.

Her mother’s voice rings in her ears.

_They kill the sheep and then raise their lambs for slaughter._

“Despite what Hilda said back at the bar, I offered to take in Sabrina; but Hilda said under no circumstances was I taking her, even though we had the room and the money to do so. Apparently Eddie wanted her to stay with family,” Alice says icily, straightening her shoulders. “And that was no longer me.”

Her mother considers Betty’s thoughtful expression. “Do you…know Sabrina?”

She nods. “A little.”

Alice bites her lip, and then shrugs with a surprisingly shy smile. “What’s she like?” She asks softly.

“She’s really nice,” Betty says truthfully. “I think she’s kind of a hot-head, but I guess that runs in the family,” she adds with a pointed look at her mother. Alice smiles. “She’s super into astrology, apparently.”

Alice laughs, and for the first time today, it sounds genuine. “Oh, that I know. I got a letter from Hilda a few years ago saying that Sabrina apparently _had_ to take this summer class at Carson College with some ghoulish woman masquerading as a psychic. But I told Hilda I would always pay for Sabrina’s education, so there was no option but to allow it…provided she also took a class that actually lived in the real world of course.”

A long, thoughtful moment passes between them. Betty stares out the windshield, watching the oncoming traffic zoom around them. Headlights pass over her eyes like a lighthouse guiding a sailor home.

Then her mother opens her mouth. “Betty. I won’t pretend to know what I saw between you and that Serpent boy at the bar. I know I push you. I’m—I just don’t want to lose you, especially not to a past I ran away from. So you need to know right now that it’s never going to go anywhere with him.”

Betty feels her hackles rising again. “You _need_ to stop telling me what I can or can’t—”

But her mother’s hands have found her wrists, and she lifts them up, shaking her with a gentle desperation. “No, baby, you don’t understand. I’m not giving you my opinion. It’s a fact. There _is no_ future with him.”

They stare at each other. “Betty, the Serpents will never let him leave.”

.

.

.

Alice puts the car into park; the small _crick_ the gearshift makes is the only sound that has passed between them since they got back on the road.

She opens her mouth to say something, but Betty moves first. She opens the car door and slips out wordlessly.

“Betty…” Her mother starts, but quickly trails off, glancing at the front door. Betty frowns, and follows her gaze. Muffled shouting can be heard from beyond the walls, and after exchanging a quick glance, she and Alice break for the door.

“—dare you! How _dare_ you keep this from me and your mother!” Her father is shouting in front of a cowering Polly. Her hands are wrapped around her abdomen and she’s crying loudly.

“Because this is how I’d knew you’d react!” Polly screeches back.

“Damn straight this is how I’ll react!” Hal hollers, throwing his hand in the air. “I told you to stay away from that Blossom boy!”

They both look over at the sound of the front door slamming shut. Betty blinks between her father and her sister, comprehension slowly dawning. Polly moves her hand from her stomach, and Betty sees that it is round.

Alice sucks in a breath. “What exactly is going on here?” she asks, in a stiff, calculating voice.

“Mom,” Polly hiccups, searching for the words.

“Our daughter got knocked up by that Blossom bastard,” Hal finishes for her, crossing the room to the kitchen. He fumbles in a cabinet for a moment and returns with a large bottle of whiskey; he pours himself a steady glassful and knocks it back in a fell swoop.

Betty rushes forward to embrace Polly, but Alice doesn’t move. “Is this true? You’re pregnant?”

Polly nods mutely, allowing Betty to usher her towards the couch.

Finally, Alice drops her bag and keys unceremoniously onto the floor and joins Hal in the kitchen, digging her grip into the black marble of the kitchen island, her head bowed between her shoulders.

“So all this time that I’ve been taking you to Dr. Patel for treatment for mono…” She trails off and shakes her head, standing upright and turning to Polly, all business. “Alright. What do you want to do?”

Hal stares at her like a second head has just appeared on his wife’s shoulder. “What? What does _she_ want to do?”

Alice’s lip curls, turning back to look at him. “Yes, Hal, what does Polly want to do?”

“I can’t believe what I’m hearing; and from you of all people,” he says, more to himself. He lets out a huff of air that might be an attempt at a laugh. “Guessing at how far along she already is, there’s only one option here.”

Alice shakes her head and chuckles emptily, starting to pace around the kitchen.

Betty wraps her arms tightly around her sister as their father moves towards them, his expression and movements gentle, as if he were approaching a wild animal. “Polly, sweetie, there’s this wonderful facility that your mother and I know of. It’s run by very nice women and you’ll be safe, have all the treatment you need, and then, when the time comes...”

“You want to send me away,” Polly interrupts, burrowing deeper into Betty’s arms.

At this moment, Betty feels as though she’s never known her father. She thinks of the gentle man who taught her how to dismantle an engine and how rebuilding a compressor was like building a relationship and does not see him here.

“She’s not going anywhere,” she says fiercely, tightening her arms around Polly.

“This is not up to you, Betty,” her father says coldly, standing up straight. “I won’t live in a house with a Blossom baby.”

“Then you can go,” Alice says from the kitchen. She pours herself her own glass of whiskey through the long pause that follows.

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me,” Alice replies, taking a sip of her drink. “We all make choices, Hal,” she adds, with a cold fury. “If you don’t want to live under the same roof as our daughter’s baby, you can leave.”

“This is my house, Alice, and you and I both know the Sisters and a quiet adoption are the only options here.” He gesticulates at Polly, wrapped in Betty’s embrace. “God, Alice. What would people _think_?”

“What would people think? What would people _think_?” Alice echoes with a screech. She chucks her glass at the wall and it shatters with a resounding, shrieking violence. “After the day I’ve had, I think I’ll have a hard time giving a rat’s ass about what people _think_.”

“Alice—”

“I’m not going to do to our daughter what you did to me,” she says, her voice forbidding as she straightens her shoulders and juts her chin into the air, like a bull about to charge.

Hal looks a loss for words. His mouth opens and closes once, and then he blinks. “Now, Alice. We had both agreed—”

“Every day, Hal!” Alice screams, looking close to tears of her own. “Every day I think about him. Not a day goes by that I don’t feel my baby being ripped from my arms.”

Betty and Polly freeze, staring at their mother as she murmurs, “My Chickadee. That’s what I was going to call him, Hal. Chic. From Charles, for your father. That was the only thing we gave him before you sent him out into the cold cruel night!”

Hal’s face takes a placating turn, and he approaches his wife with his hands in surrender. “Alice…”

But her own name seems to snap her back into place and she stares at Hal with cold, flashing eyes.

“I see him everywhere,” she hisses. “He has the face of every man I meet. I see him on the street. I see him in every stranger, even the ones who aren’t even his age. Even today, I— Not a single time do I not wonder if I’m staring into the eyes of my own son. I will _not_ do that to my daughter. I will not condemn her to a life of this torture.”

Hal looks slapped dumb. It’s like every fight they’ve had this summer has reached its final setting, because her mother looks a strange combination of exhausted and furious and something much darker altogether.

“Don’t test me, Hal. You and I both know what I’m capable of at this point. And I’m too damn exhausted to care about what I do next. So when I say you can go, I’m not asking.”

“Alice, you’re not thinking…”

“I said out!” She shrieks, rounding on him to pound on his chest, punctuating each strike with an, “Out! Out! Out!”

He looks as though he wants to argue, or maybe shake her senseless, but with quiet restraint, Betty watches her father head upstairs. Polly sobs into her arms as their mother stands with her fingers curled around the table, her eyes closed. Hal returns a few minutes later with a full duffle bag, and storms out the door with a resounding _slam._

Only when he’s gone does her mother seem to breathe.

Eyes finally opening, Alice approaches Betty and Polly on the couch. Silently, all three join hands, like witches weaving a spell of protection or forming a salting circle, and bow their heads into an embrace.

.

.

.

Perhaps the most surprising twist of the evening is that Alice doesn’t press Polly for information. After holding her daughters close with shuddering tears for about half an hour, she wipes her face clean and quietly goes to bed with a sizable glass of white wine and a look that simply says _tomorrow_.

Polly and Betty watch her go, then finally head upstairs themselves. They collapse onto Betty’s bed and share a moment of staring at nothing, processing the last defining hour of their lives.

After a minute, Betty rolls onto her side and tucks her hands under her face, staring at her sister. “Oh my god Polly, I can’t believe you’re…pregnant. Why didn’t you tell me?”

Polly rubs at her eyes. “I don’t know. I meant to, but…I’ve been feeling really overwhelmed by everything and I didn’t know where to start. I definitely didn’t mean to tell Dad, but I…I thought he was in the garage and I went down to get a glass of water and he saw my stomach and freaked out.”

Betty doesn’t know how to explain this newfound hatred for her father, a man she’d always seen as such a steady, stabilizing force in her life. In the games of cat and mouse played in this household, her mother was always the enemy. But now…

“How are you feeling about all this? What did Jason say? I mean, he knows, right?”

Polly looks over at Betty, running smoothing hands over her swollen stomach thoughtfully. “Oh, he knows. He was really happy, at first. Like, so happy. He said he was gonna go get his grandmother’s ring and that we should get married. Then…he didn’t call me for a few days. When he finally did, he said he was freaked out and wasn’t sure if it was the right move.”

“He said that?” Betty asks, shocked. She’d always thought Jason had been head over heels for her sister. “Like…he wanted you to have an abortion?”

“No, no, not that. He said he’d support whatever I wanted. I just think his parents got to him,” Polly sighs, turning her head back to stare at the ceiling. “Got in his head. They definitely don’t like me much. But then it seemed like he regretted it, because then he said he’d changed his mind and he still wanted to get married. Then he started being dodgy again…I mean it gave me whiplash so many times that I finally told him to make a decision and stick to it, but that I was gonna make my own too.”

“And you wanted to keep the baby?”

“Babies,” she corrects quietly. “I’m having twins. I found out this week.”

“Whoa,” Betty breathes.

Polly bites her lip against a grin. “It definitely wasn’t part of the plan, but when I found out I was pregnant, I was…relieved, somehow.”

“Relieved?”

“It’s hard to explain. I’ve always felt like our whole lives were so planned out, Betty. Every step. No matter what we did, we somehow fell right into the trap they spun for us. But this is the first decision I think I’ve ever really made for myself. I know it’s going to be hard, and I have no idea what crawled up Jason’s ass or what he’s gonna do, but it just feels like…for the first time in my life, I’m in charge of it. Does that make sense?”

“It makes a lot of sense, Pol,” Betty says quietly, thinking about how she’d felt the same way until she started the school paper. They exchange furtive smiles, only broken by a dim buzzing on the nightstand a moment later.

Polly sits up. “Is that your _phone_ , Betty?”

“Who would be calling me? It’s after midnight,” Betty says, reaching across Polly for it, but her sister swats her hand away, her face breaking out into a wide grin.

“Oh my god. Elizabeth Cooper, do you have a booty call?” Polly asks, her eyes bulging, keeping the phone out of Betty’s wriggling reach.

“What? _No,_ don’t!”

“Ah-ah! I’m pregnant, can’t climb over me like that!” She holds the phone to her ear with a maniacal sort of look. “Betty Cooper’s phone, and you better have a good reason for calling at this hour.”

“Pol- _ly_ ,” Betty groans, abandoning the attempt to grab it from this side of the bed. She rolls off and runs around to Polly’s side, but her sister has gotten up and is using her free hand to keep Betty at arm’s length.

Polly’s grin grows even more with delight as she pulls the phone from her face and covers the speaker.

“Betty,” she says slowly. “Why is there a boy named Jughead calling you at 12:30 in the morning to tell you he’s outside your window?”

.

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.

.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok remember when i said i was taking a break? well apparently i meant the opposite. i decided that for the emotional, character-driven chapters (much of which were already written) i couldn't resist cracking into that earlier than later. after the next chapter (jug and betty talk FEELINGS!!!!) then will come the short break so i can make sure the _plot_ comes together in the last arc. 
> 
> anyway. while it's important to keep in mind that this alice's highly biased perspective on the serpents, it's also still a gang, and that means it's not a black and white situation. it's easy to box things into us vs. them but i think being a Serpent, as with all elements of gang-related life that i've read up on, is more complicated than bikers with a heart of gold. 
> 
> this chapter was very cooper heavy, but a long time coming. hope you liked my take on alice's backstory. i also did change things about the way polly's pregnancy came out, but i decided that after the fucking extra ass day alice has had she's finally just done 
> 
> pretty please with a cheryl on top let me know what you thought!! the response means the world to me and helps the writing process move along!


	10. Chapter 10

Jughead is _where?_

“What? Give me that,” Betty says, snatching the phone from her sister. “Hello?”

“Wh—uh, is this Betty now?” Jughead’s voice crackles over the line. “I thought I was talking to your mom for a second and I’m pretty sure my life just flashed before my eyes.”

“No, that was my crazy sister,” Betty says, crossing the room to the window. Jughead is, indeed, standing outside. He gives an awkward sort of wave when he sees her. Betty glances back over her shoulder at Polly and they exchange incredulous shrugs. “Um…what are you doing here?”

“Oh, right. Well, I…you told me that your room is across from Archie’s, and I remembered where he lived, and I couldn’t sleep and was driving around and ended up…here. Your light was on, so… I know you probably never want to see me again but I had this stupid pipe dream that you might let me try to explain things.”

“You want to talk?” Betty bites on her lip. She tries to remind herself that she’s upset with him, but after the emotional whirlwind the past 72 hours have been, she’s honestly too tired to be angry anymore.

“Most ardently,” he says, now with a bit of his old dryness.

She pauses, deliberating. Truthfully, the thought of Jughead arriving under her window for a midnight rendezvous sends her heart into a flurry, but she’s also left with the crippling memory of him cradling her bloody hands like a wounded animal and their sad, bitter, and very public fight not hours ago—though it feels like years after the night she’s had.

But then she catches his eye and even from a distance, she can see the pleading in them, and it crumbles her resolve. 

“Alright Darcy, hold on,” Betty says, making up her mind with a roll of her eyes. She turns back to Polly and moves the phone away from her mouth. “He wants to talk.”

“Sneak out through the cellar,” she suggests. “Dad never locks it. That’s how I’d get in and out of the house. Or…he could use the Andrews’s ladder. That’s what Jason always used to do,” Polly adds, with a little bit of a smirk.

“Ugh, I definitely don’t wanna know about that,” Betty says, returning to the window. “Okay, do you see a ladder across the yard, near that window? If you grab that, you can come up.”

“Come…come up,” Jughead repeats. “You want…in your room. Oh, um, okay, up I go—I mean, _shit_ —” At this point, he drops the phone and the line goes dead. He dives for it, shoves it hastily back into his pocket, then, barely glancing back, he hops the Andrews’s fence and makes for the ladder.

Betty can’t help but snort, having rarely seen Jughead so visibly nervous. Polly joins her at the window. “He’s coming up, huh? Do we need to have a… _talk_?” Polly asks, eyebrows raised as she runs her hands over her pregnant belly with meaning.

“God, Polly, no,” Betty sputters, blushing madly. “I think I preferred you as the cryptic shut-in.”

“What kind of name is Jughead anyway?” She asks, now craning her neck to get a better look at him. “Oh my god, is he wearing a motorcycle jacket? Betty Cooper! Who is this boy?”

“He’s…can you go, please? He’s coming back.”

Polly raises her hands in mock surrender. “Okay, I’m going. But, for the record, if you _were_ to need them, condoms are in our bathroom, under the sink, in an empty shampoo bottle. And remember, Mom is a heavy sleeper.”

Betty rolls her eyes so far back into her head she thinks they’ll be stuck there. “You’ve been friends with Cheryl too long,” she mutters, as she pulls her hair from it’s ponytail and shakes it free. “She’s had a bad influence on you.”

“Just remember, it only takes one time,” Polly says in a little sing-song voice, pointing at her stomach with both hands as she walks backwards out of the room. She’s just closing the door behind her when there’s a tap at her window and Betty jumps, even though she expects it.

“Hey there Juliet,” he says, a bashful kind of smile on his face as she lifts up the glass pane. “What light through yonder window breaks on a Monday in suburbia?”

“I don’t think that was written to be used by boys calling girls to see if they’re up after midnight,” Betty sighs, tucking her hair behind her ears. She realizes it’s the first time Jughead has seen her with her hair down.

“I think that’s exactly what that was for,” Jughead says, shuffling his long legs over the threshold. “Romeo was kind of a creep.”

“Well, at least he threw sonnets, not rocks. That would’ve been really unoriginal,” Betty says, backing up to give him the room he needs to pull himself fully out of the window.

“I mean, my first choice would’ve been a boom box, but it didn’t fit on the back of my bike,” Jughead shrugs. He pauses. “So…hi.”

Betty bites her lip. “Hi.”

They stare at each other for a long, unbidden moment before Jughead clears his throat and busies himself with taking in his new and very pink surroundings. “I like your room,” he says awkwardly, ears tinged the same magenta as the flowers on her wallpaper.

“I see you’re back to basic black,” she says, gesturing to the leather jacket she’d unceremoniously dropped onto his pool game. She tries to keep the ice from her voice, but perhaps she’s not quite as done with her hurt as she thought.

He shifts uncomfortably in it. “Yeah. This one is my favorite, thanks for…giving it back. Fits better.”

“So you wanted to talk?” Betty asks, hands on her hips.

He nods. “Yeah, yeah I do. Betty, you were right, back at the bar. We don’t know each other. Not really. But after you left, I drove around for a while and did some thinking. Well, actually, Sabrina handed my ass to me for about an hour and then I went for a ride. I came to a couple of conclusions, but mainly, I know that I _want_ you to know me. Or at least give you the option to. You probably want nothing to do with me at this point, so I get it if…it’s too late.”

Betty stares at him and wets her lips. “It’s not too late,” she says quietly.

He inhales, the corners of his lips twitching with relief. “Okay. This is kind of hard for me so, I have this whole…well, I practiced, a little. I just need to get it all out, and please don’t say anything until the end, okay?”

Betty nods, and takes a seat on her bed. Jughead watches her movements closely, but keeps his distance.

“I need you to understand why I kept being a Serpent from you—it’s not that I didn’t trust you. I _do_ trust you. It’s definitely not that I thought you couldn’t handle it. I think you can handle just about anything. I mean, you’re amazing,” he adds, flushing.

Betty burns equally bright red, but true to her word, keeps her mouth shut. Not that she’d know what to say to that anyway.

He wanders across the room. “I know you’re not all sunshine and roses, but I’ve seen this world take down a lot of people I thought were indestructible. It got in my head. And when you grow up on the Southside, people just look at you like you’re a waste of space, or trouble waiting to happen, and there’s no middle ground.

"And when I met you, you were so…nice to me. You wanted me on the paper and wanted to watch movies and I couldn’t handle the idea of you looking at me like that too, because I figured one day you would. I convinced myself that once you knew me, you’d realize you were just slumming it with Southside trash. I mean, my whole life, people have been telling me who I am. After a while it’s really fucking easy to wonder if they’re right,” he says, and Betty feels any residual anger with him completely evaporate.

That she understands. That she knows.

She can't stand to hear him tear himself down like that, and she starts to open her mouth, but Jughead beats her to it. He runs a hand down his face.

“The Serpents—they’re family. More of a family than I’ve really got, sometimes. My dad’s not a bad guy, and he’s really trying now, but he’s always struggled with…making the right choices. Especially when I was growing up. But every time he’d fuck up, the Serpents would catch _me_ when _he’d_ fall. They were always there for me. Pick me up from school. Give me books and bring us fresh fruit and new phones and stuff. They even gave me my laptop. They were my heroes and sometimes all I felt like I had.”

Her mother’s story sits hauntingly in her thoughts. _They kill the sheep and raise the lambs for slaughter_ , she’d said. But the way Jughead describes it is with a joy, or with a love, or some kind of a desperate, aching relief that only a neglected child can properly express.

“My dad’s choices, though…it was really hard on our family. My mom and my dad—they’d fight, all the time. Mostly about the work my dad was doing with the Serpents; how she wanted him to stop drinking and get a good job and get the fuck out of the trailer park, that kind of stuff. But one day the Serpents came looking for me. They said it was time I stepped up. Joined ranks. Helped other kids the way they helped me.

“My mom lost it. She told me that after all she’d done to keep me from it, in the end I was just like my dad. Said she wasn’t gonna watch me go down that path or wait around for Jellybean to do the same. So she grabbed my sister and left.” Jughead sighs. “Not long after that, I officially became a Serpent. So I guess she was right about me.”

Betty opens her mouth to protest deeply against this woman, who, for being a total stranger, she hates with a burning passion. But at Jughead’s look, she presses her lips together and nods for him to continue.

“My dad wasn’t really happy about it either, and he’s a lot of things, but he’s not a hypocrite, so there wasn’t much he could do to stop me.” Jughead pauses, his left hand in his pocket and his right hand playing with his hair.

“At first it wasn’t real different. Joaquin was already in the gang, and Sabrina followed not long after me. We hung out same as always, only this time we felt freer. Older. We could do what we wanted knowing we had the Serpents to protect us.

“Then…the older guys started asking us to start helping out. Mostly just giving out new shoes or selling weed or moving some stereos in and out of cars; small stuff. But then Joaquin got herded into this retaliatory attack on this gang from Greendale for some vandalization of a few businesses. He’s so sensitive, he can’t say no to anybody. I told him not to. But he went, it got heavy, and he got arrested. A few days later my dad’s friend Raven overdosed, and then like right after that, I got beat up pretty badly because of the stupid bullshit novel I was writing. It was all this shit happening at once and I felt like the only way to get through it was to keep my focus and get some answers. And then I met you.”

Betty blinks at him; he lets out a breath that bridges into a smile and runs his hands through his hair.

“I always thought I was…different. I’ve had crushes before, but I kept waiting to feel the other stuff that I’d heard about. It just wasn’t happening for me. I figured ‘okay, you wanted to be a loner, and you got it’ but after I met you, I realized…I just need to know someone. To trust them, before I… _feel.”_

He pauses meaningfully and his face is beet red and he absolutely refuses to look at her.

“That day you invited me to Pop’s, it was like a switch being flipped. Like it hit me all at once. Suddenly I realized I’d been thinking about you all the time. You like old movies and you’re so driven and smart and you’re so beautiful, Betty—you came out of nowhere and I felt like I’d been hit by a fucking truck. I kept trying to start over, thought about telling you everything all the time, but I was so overwhelmed by all this external and internal bullshit that I couldn’t think straight.

“All I wanted to do was see you, but keep you far away. Be with you, but not let myself be with you. Trust you, but keep the truth away from you. I wanted to tell you things but I’m so used to people letting me down or walking away and—I meant what I said, Betty, I destroy everything I touch. Archie’s dad once called me cursed and I think truer words have never been spoken.”

A surge of hatred for Fred Andrews hits her and she’s shocked that such a kind, friendly man could say something so cruel. Then again, tonight she’s learned a lot about who people really can be.

She suddenly feels incredibly guilty for her outburst at the Whyte Wyrm; how could she have projected her own insecurities onto him like that when he has so many heavier things going on his life? Why should he care about her petty little problems when he’s got death and drugs and the heel of classism on his back at all times?

“Juggie, I’m so sorry. I had _no right_ to be mad at you, please, you don’t owe me any of this,” she says, before she can stop herself. “That was about my problems, my issues; not yours, and you shouldn’t have to—”

But he holds up a hand, shaking his head. “No, no, that’s what you’re not getting. I _want_ you to have the right to get mad at me. This is gonna sound weird, but I’m glad you were mad at me. It…gave me hope that you actually cared. I want you to know me and I _really_ want to know you and I’ve wanted that for a while. I’ve just been too scared to admit it.”

Jughead shrugs and wraps his hand around his forehead, his movements steadily becoming more and more erratic.

“I don’t know if I’m scared of being happy or hurt, or if I’m just so self-loathing that I tear apart anything good in some act of a stupid self-fulfilling disaster fantasy,” he says, shaking his head to himself. “Or, as Sabrina lovingly puts it, maybe I’m just intimated by expanding my emotional range beyond that of a third grader.

“But even while I was trying to keep you away, I couldn’t stop myself from wanting to be around you. I mean, I even pretended like Joaquin made me go to that house party when I actually just went because I thought you’d be there.”

He runs his hands through his hair. “And we shouldn’t have went because now it’s all gone to hell and Joaquin is _really_ freaking out and Sabrina is so fucking mad at me—I mean, she doesn’t even _like_ boys and she trusted me with that and then I go and use her as a beard? What the fuck is wrong with me? And all she’s ever wanted was to get to know her family and she thinks you hate her now—and Jesus, a boy is _dead_ and the Serpents are being really evasive and I know I should be thinking about those things but all I can think about…is regretting that I didn’t kiss you when I might’ve had the chance.”

Betty’s heart slams madly against her ribcage. He looks utterly lost for words. “I tried putting distance. I tried ignoring you. I just can’t stand it anymore. Avoiding it just made it all worse. Lying to myself and to you and I hurt you and misled you and I don’t know why you even let me come up here because I’m such a piece of—”

But he doesn’t get a chance to finish that thought.

Betty pushes off the bed and reaches him in one smooth movement, her hands finding his jaw and her lips finding his own. She presses them there for a soft, fleeting moment before pulling back to confirm that what she just did was okay, that she hadn’t crossed a line he wasn’t even ready to draw, but he just blinks back at her and then rushes forward, catching her mouth in a crashing, clumsy, but beautiful thing.

It’s explorative and unrelenting as his hands find her face; she can feel his shoulders rising and falling as he kisses her back with such a reverence that they both stumble backwards.

The back of Betty’s knees hit the bed and they let themselves sink into it and it’s only when Jughead has started moving around on top of her, his lips finding a place to worship on her neck, that Betty manages a grasp at air.

“I know you asked me not to interrupt you,” she says in a breathy laugh, and she feels him chuckle against her skin.

His head drops onto her shoulder and rolls off her, but doesn’t go far. “You already did,” he reminds her. “I was half-hoping you’d shut me up and spare me the misery of all that rambling anyway.”

She props her head up on her hand, smiling softly at him. “It was cute. I’ve never heard you talk so much.”

He rolls his eyes at the ceiling. “Yeah, that’s so not the look I was going for. It was supposed to be this really eloquent speech, it was gonna be smooth—I mean, what kind of writer am I that I can’t talk to a pretty girl without blubbering like an idiot?”

“Well this is why you have an editor, I guess,” Betty grins. “Thank you for telling me all that, Juggie. Really, I…most of what happened earlier was me working through my own frustrations. I shouldn’t have put that on you.”

“It’s okay. I've had that rant building up in me long enough that it needed to be exorcised. And I told you,” Jughead says firmly, “I want to know you. I mean it. Remember our deal? No take backs.”

He catches her eye and a smirk appears at the corner of his mouth. She finds herself staring at it, tracing the line it makes to the dimple that forms and when she finally looks up, he’s watching her carefully, his pupils blown wide.

He shifts forward and catches her in another kiss, this one softer and gentler, but no less filled with things unsaid. She moves closer and before she knows it, she’s practically straddling him and their legs are so tangled it’s hard to tell where his end and hers start. When they finally break for air, Jughead is visibly rumpled and his hair is mussed and she thinks she must look as flushed as he does.

“Okay, I definitely like you, Cooper,” he says, exhaling and quirking his eyebrow at her.

“I like you too, Jughead Jones,” she whispers, “Though I think that might go without saying. You must’ve known.”

“I mean as of about ten minutes ago, yeah, I might’ve gotten the hint,” he murmurs, grinning.

“No, I mean…I’ve liked you for a while. Like basically the whole time,” she says, the apples of her cheeks turning pink. Jughead stares at her. “You didn’t know? I thought I was so obvious.”

His head jerks back in light surprise and he looks as though he’s struggling for the words, but it doesn’t matter. Betty doesn’t need them.

Thoughtfully, almost without realizing it, Betty presses her hand against his jawline, drawing her fingers along the smooth and freckled skin. She hears her mother’s warning— _the Serpents will never let him leave_ —but for now, she can’t muster the energy to care. She wants to memorize this moment should that day ever come.

He catches her hand against his face and something intimate moves across his eyes as he pulls it up to his mouth. He presses a soft kiss into the flesh of her palm.

She freezes. His eyes turn cloudy as his thumb finds the little half-moon scars littering the valley of her skin. He rubs at them, eyebrows knotted. “You don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to,” he says softly. “But…”

She swallows and shuffles against him, their bodies now facing one another as she draws her other hand behind her head. “I don’t know why I do that,” she says quietly, watching his thumb move silently across the pad of broken skin. “The pain just helps me focus. I don’t know. Sometimes I think there’s something very wrong with me.”

“Something wrong with _you?”_ He repeats, in a jokingly incredulous way. “We’ve met, right?”

When she doesn’t say anything, just stares down at the black leather spread against her floral bed sheets, Jughead sighs and toys around with lacing their fingers together. “There’s nothing wrong with you,” he whispers. “You’re perfect.”

“Don’t,” she says sharply. “Don’t call me that.”

Jughead frowns at her. “Okay, okay, I’m sorry. I just meant…”

Betty rolls onto her back, her hand cradling her forehead. “No, you didn’t know. I just hate that word. I always feel like it’s being used against me.”

He gives her a prompting look, but she shakes her head. Jughead’s tongue digs into his cheek thoughtfully, but he seems to accept that as the end of the conversation.

Exhaustion hits her like a brick as she realizes it’s past one in the morning and she’s barely slept all weekend. The idea of laying her darkest thoughts on the table after the three days she’s had seems far too daunting a task. She has so much left to say to him, so much she needs to explain about herself and what his words meant to her, but she's too tired to find the thoughts.

“It’s late,” he says, his fingers brushing against her hair. “I should go.”

“No,” she whispers suddenly, squeezing his hand. “I haven’t been sleeping well lately and I… Can you just…can you just stay? We’ll sneak you out in the morning.”

His expression is unreadable, but his throat bobs as he nods, almost imperceptibly. He starts to sit up, and something must show on her face, because he releases a breathy chuckle and bends over to kiss her lightly. “I just have to take off my shoes,” he murmurs against her mouth before pulling away.

Betty’s eyes are heavy as he sheds his jacket and are closed by the time he moves for his shoes, but she hears the soft _thump, thump_ of them hitting the carpet and the sound is oddly comforting.

A moment later, he rejoins her on the bed and she has a second before sleep to realize how much she likes the sound of a mattress dipping before it leads to the embrace by a warm body.

.

.

.

.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you may have noticed this story has jumped up to 16 chapters. originally it was 12, but once i got into the actual writing of it all, i realized there needed to be more of a balance between plot and character heavy chapters and some breathing room so it's not an onslaught of 24/7 drama. 
> 
> i've never written anything this long before--i've never actually breached 6 chapters, let alone, as of this moment, 35k words, so this whole story has been a real milestone for me. i never would've expected this goal to have been made by this ship/fandom but i swear i blacked out and woke up to 60 pages in a word document. don't know how it happened but i'm honestly really proud of myself. 
> 
> i'm working on setting up a back log of the next few chapters now so it might be a bit before the next update but all the support and reviews has meant SO much to me and i'm so excited to get into the second half of this story. there's still a mystery to solve and a lot more relationships to explore!
> 
> anyway, this chapter was hard to write because jughead's voice can be so tricky--he mumbles when he's nervous, but he's also withholding, but he's also got a lot of pent up emotion (and there's a lot more swearing since this fic isn't set on the cw)...but i really wrestled with getting this dialogue/jughead-heavy chapter right, so please let me know what you think!! reviews make the hiatus go by faster! winkety wink


	11. Chapter 11

Betty wakes up to a cacophony of beeping, buzzing, and groaning. She stirs, fumbling around for the source of the noise and Jughead stretches out catlike alongside her. The window tells her it’s barely dawn. “It’s mine,” he mumbles into her neck. “I set an alarm.”

He shuffles around and a moment later, the sounds stop. He rolls back against her, arm snaking around her waist. “Is this okay?” He asks when she doesn’t move, a note of mild panic in his voice.

After a thoughtful moment, she turns to face him. “Yeah,” she whispers. “I just realized I’ve never had a boy in my bed.”

“Yeah, well, if it helps, I’ve never had a boy in my bed either,” Jughead smirks.

She slaps him on the shoulder lightly. “Shut up,” she says with a snort.

His smirk turns into something soft and his eyes dart up and down, like he wants to look at her but can’t hold the moment.

“What?” She says, trying to catch his eye. “What?”

Jughead licks his lips and mumbles something under his breath, but shakes his head. “It’s not important.”

“Juggie, what was the point of coming over here and dropping a three thousand word essay at my feet if you’re just gonna do this again?” She huffs, pushing her hair back from her face.

He nods, more to himself.

“You’re right, you’re right. It’s a habit.” He finally looks at her. “I felt really weird when I woke up. Everything was soft and blue, somehow. Or like I was behind the lens of a camera shifting in and out of focus and I felt…present. Really present. I wasn’t thinking about the Serpents or my dad or my friends or that kid—just you. I didn’t know what it was. I just realized that it’s…happiness. I forgot what that felt like.”

He says that faintly, almost at a whisper, something embarrassed and fluttering about it, like the dim buzzing of little wings against the soft petal of a flower. Something blooming. His skin is warm where she lays her fingers. He holds her gaze.

“Is that too intense?” He asks, when she doesn’t say anything.

The bed creaks as she kisses him.

.

.

.

As Jughead sits up to pull on his boots, Betty rolls over to check her own phone, only to be greeted by a flood of texts from late last night.

_Earth to Betty! you were supposed to check in!_

_Omfg are you actually dead_

_You are legally required to tell me if you are!_

_BETTY_

She lets out a small laugh, but knows this translates to Kevin actually in the midst of a panic attack, so she shoots back a quick reply to say that she’s fine and fell asleep early and hope it doesn’t wake him.

“What’s so funny?” Jughead asks over his shoulder.

“Kevin asked me to check in last night in return for telling me where the Serpent bar was, and I forgot to. He kind of freaked out,” she explains, clicking her phone to black and crawling up next to him.

“Yeah, I’d actually been wondering how you figured that out. There’s not exactly a Yelp section for finding the perfect local seedy biker bar.” He grins and slaps his hands against his knees. “I should go, before Mama bear realizes Baby bear’s bed was just right.”

She raises her eyebrows. “So, just to be clear, you’re Goldilocks in this scenario?”

“Don’t call me out, Cooper,” Jughead sighs. “I’ll see you at school.”

He leans in for a quick kiss, almost automatically, and she’s struck by how simple and domestic it feels; almost more intimate than the fact that he slept in her bed last night. He grins dopily at her and then heads for the window. He disappears behind it a moment later.

Jughead called this happiness. She thinks he might’ve been right.

She stares at the place where he just vanished and shares a secretive smile with herself, then gets up and begins to dress for the day. When she makes her way downstairs, she sees her mother and her sister already at the breakfast table. She has a brief moment of wondering where her father is, and then she remembers. She inhales, cricks her neck, and tries not to think about him.

“Polly, what are you doing up so early?” She asks, sliding into her usual seat. Normally, Polly doesn’t rise from her bed without several attempts of banging on her door and the occasional splash of cold water on her face. (Though she only did that once, she still suspects Polly never fully forgave her.)

Her sister rolls her eyes through her bite of pancake. “I have to pee like once an hour now, so this apparently is my new sleep schedule,” she says. “Now that the cat is out of the bag, I might as well have breakfast if I’m up.”

Betty glances at their mother, who is sitting rod-straight against the back of her chair. She smiles back at Betty, her eyes softening. As a whole, actually, everything about her mother seems softer. Like she’d taken an eraser to her edges, or something melted on her exterior; Betty thinks about how Jughead had described happiness as soft and blue and silently agrees.

Alice passes Betty the pitcher of orange juice. “By the way, Betty, a couple more college pamphlets came in the mail for you,” she says, after a thoughtful moment. She gets up and goes to the little wooden desk at the back of the dining hall, and after a minute of rifling through the drawer, returns with three stacks of paper.

Betty sifts through them: Columbia, NYU, and the New School. Her mother looks a bit guilty, and given how long her mother had dug through the drawer to find them, she gets the sense she may have been hiding them from her. Still, she didn’t throw them out, which says a lot.

Polly leans over the table to peak. “Mom, you realize all these schools are in New York City, right? What happened to Brown being the only color on the spectrum?”

“Brown University is still an excellent choice, Polly, and they would be very lucky to have you or your sister. But…well, New York City is quite a lot closer than Providence. So it’s not a terrible option,” Alice says primly.

“I’m confused,” Polly says, staring at Alice like they’ve never met before. “What about your big speech on the comforts and safety of small town college life?”

Alice clears her throat and takes a sip of her coffee. “Last night, I realized… I’m never going to be a hands-off mother. I always knew that when I’d have children, I wanted to be there for them in the ways my mother wasn’t. And I understand how that can lead to be being a tad _protective,_ but last night I realized that I want to make sure you two always have options.”

Betty and Polly exchange glances, and then both stare back at their mother. “Options?” Betty repeats.

“Yes, options. Polly, if you want to keep your baby—”

“Babies,” Polly interrupts, looking deeply nervous. “I’m having twins.”

Alice’s mouth opens and closes once, but that seems to be all the reaction she’ll allow herself, because she seems to accept this without argument.

“Alright, if you want to keep your babies, I will help you every step of the way. You will, of course, still be going to college at some point and you’ll need child care and support,” she says, and Betty thinks that there’s a tad bit of irony in the speech about agency and free will where their mother subtly demands that college is still mandatory.

 _Baby steps,_ she thinks.

“Okay, I know if you _were_ body-snatched, you wouldn’t tell me,” Polly says, squinting at their mother. “But…that means a lot.”

“You’re welcome, honey. And Betty,” Alice adds, gesturing to the pamphlets in hand, “I want you to feel you have choices as well, and I’ll do whatever I can to make sure you get where you want to go.”

It’s still her mother—poised and proper with her neck raised swan-like, equal parts graceful and threatening—but the words themselves are completely unexpected. Perhaps yesterday had more of an impact than Betty realized, though she’d have thought mountains would be easier to move.

“Thanks Mom,” Betty says, after a long pause. “I mean, I’m still just a sophomore, but…I’ve heard NYU has a great journalism program.”

Alice nods and presses her lips together, like saying nothing is requiring every iota of will power she has. Then she sips at her coffee, eyes turning tender as they trail over her daughters.

.

.

.

Kevin spots her on her way into school and clears his throat ominously as he catches up to her. “You just forgot, huh?”

Veronica steps up alongside the two of them seemingly out of nowhere, a girl capable of remarkable stealth for someone in three-inch heels. “What’d you forget, B?”

“Betty here tortured the location of a Serpent biker bar out of me and then I didn’t hear from her for twenty-four hours. So, how’d it go, Mia Wallace?” Kevin puts on a good show of annoyance, but he’s got the familiar, baiting gleam in his eye that means he also is eagerly digging for a bit of drama.

“Intrigue,” Veronica murmurs, clearly amused. “Can’t believe you went to a bar without me.”

“Maybe you didn’t hear me when I said a _Serpent biker bar,”_ Kevin repeats flatly.

“Wait, I thought you were kidding,” Veronica says, her eyebrows rising. “Betty. What kind of dark Faustian path are you on exactly?”

They both swivel their heads to look at Betty, who is nibbling her lip while she tries to find the words to summarize the Shakespearean theater production that was yesterday. “I needed to talk to Jughead about something and I figured that’s where he’d be,” she says, not really sure where else to begin.

“So he _is_ a Serpent, then,” Kevin intones, frowning deeply and pulling up to a stop just inside the main entrance to the school. “I knew it.”

“Kev, come on,” Betty huffs. “It’s not as big a deal as you make it sound. They’re not axe-murders.”

“Betty, they’re criminals. You have no idea how difficult those guys make my dad’s life,” Kevin says slowly, looking affronted.

“Well, you don’t know how difficult your dad makes their lives!” Betty counters, thinking privately that no one forced Sheriff Keller into the job. “Honestly, this is, like, basic classism.”

“Oh, god, have you been reading Foucault again? Come on, Betty, we’re not about to enter the French revolution,” Kevin says, almost pleadingly now, but without losing his air of frustration. 

Veronica places a hand on both of their shoulders. “Okay, I know I’m still new and I don’t fully understand what’s going between the North and South sides of Deliverance, but honestly, what’s the big deal here?” She flicks her eyes over both them dubiously, clearly hoping one will see reason. “This isn’t fair Verona where we lay our scene, after all. It’s _just_ Riverdale. This town only has one Starbucks, for godsakes.”

Betty and Kevin glance at each other, a similar expression of resignation and a discomfort with being on different sides of an argument, but neither budge. She juts her chin out further as his lips press firmly together. 

Finally, Kevin breaks. “Look, I know it’s more complicated than the Jets and the Sharks, okay? I understand what prejudice looks like, believe me. I’ve been out since seventh grade. I mean, maybe you’re right. I’m not saying they’re _all_ bad, Betty; Jughead does seem nice. But you have no idea what it’s like for my dad and the rest of his department. And a lot of people feel the same way about the Serpents. They’re still just _trouble_ even when you factor in some backstory about the prison industrial complex. You can try to convince me or Veronica otherwise, but you’re never gonna convince the whole town.”

Betty lets out a long, slow breath, considering this. She feels the wisps of anger curling around her shoulders, undulating, smoke-like; a candle just blown out. She rubs at her temples.

“Fine. Challenge accepted,” she says, turning on her heel, plotting her path towards the Blue & Gold.

“What? No, Betty, that’s so not what I meant,” Kevin calls after her, jogging to keep up with her long strides.

Betty whips around so fast her own ponytail nearly whacks her in the face. “This town is gonna eat itself alive if we don’t do something about it,” she snaps. “Drugs have been ravaging the south side for years and now that they’re on the north side of town it’s only going to get worse. Moose is dead, Kevin, and we need to make sure that doesn’t happen to anyone else.”

With that, she storms off, deaf to Kevin and Veronica’s protests echoing after her. She throws open the newspaper door and jumps slightly when the force of it sends the doorknob banging vehemently against the wall. She drops her backpack on the desk and goes for her laptop, not caring for the rest of the contents of her bag spilling out along the surface of the table.

She’s halfway through her opening statement when she hears vague, echoing yells from down the hall and the scuffling of sneakers on tile. Looking up, she snaps her laptop shut and darts out of the office, following the sound.

She rounds the corner, and finds Jughead pressed forcefully against his locker by Reggie Mantle, his forearm locked at the base of Jughead’s neck to keep him from moving and a newspaper shoved against Jughead’s torso. “’Sup, you little snake. I’ve been looking for you.”

“Reggie!” Betty yells, rushing forward and trying desperately to move him away from Jughead, but she might as well try to move a brick wall for all Reggie has dug his heels in. “Reggie, let him go!”

“Stay out of this, Princess Buttercup,” Reggie snaps, not taking his eyes off Jughead.

“Stop! He didn’t do anything!” She cries, and finally Reggie looks at her. Jughead writhes under his grip but Reggie holds him firmly in place.

“Oh yeah?” Reggie says tauntingly, though it comes out half-desperate and half-choked and Betty realizes that there is something far heavier than rage behind his eyes. “I expected better from you, Cooper. Your parents fucking wrote the book on this.”

Jughead uses what limited mobility he has to look at the newspaper thrust into his hands and inhales sharply.

SOUTHSIDE SERPENTS SPOTTED FLEEING THE SCENE OF THE CRIME blinks up at Betty and she curses audibly. _Shit, shit, shit._  Between the White Wyrm, her mother kicking her father out, Polly's unexpected pregnancy, she’d forgotten all about the article.

“Well, of all the ways your vague threats could come to fruition I never thought it’d be because of something you _read,”_ Jughead drawls. His face is impassive, like he’s casually thinking about somewhere better to be, but there’s still a noticeable tick in the corner of his jaw.

“You little punk, I’m gonna fucking murder you,” Reggie hisses, shoving Jughead against the metal with renewed fervor. Jughead grunts with the force of it. “Try me one more time. You’re lucky we’re at school or I’d have already sent you back to hell where you belong.”

“You’re the one who picked this lovely public location for a smack down. A bit of advice? Don’t let anyone tell you to consider a career in espionage,” Jughead says, a growl now in the back of his throat.

He finally manages to break free from Reggie’s grip and pushes him away, harder than Betty or Reggie clearly expected. His eyes widen as he stumbles back and Betty remembers with a shock that Jughead is an active member of a motorcycle gang and not nearly as scrawny as he looks.

“You don’t want to fight me, Reggie.”

“Hell yeah I do,” Reggie hisses, “You and the rest of the Ramones are all gonna pay in blood for what you did to Moose.”

Betty rushes to stand between the two of them, because there’s a spot of red in Reggie’s eye she’s never seen before and she doesn’t want to know what that means. A crowd has begun to gather around them, a seemingly equal amount of excited anticipation and anxiety among their faces.

“Reggie, stop,” Betty says, in what she hopes is a reasonably calm voice. “It wasn’t their fault for what happened to Moose, okay? We don’t know what—”

He looks at her sharply. “Really? The one party I have where Serpents show up and my best friend ends up— That doesn’t seem like a fucking coincidence to you, Super Sleuth? I know Moose was hooking up with that gay crypt-keeper that night, I even fucking saw him standing over him!”

“Joaquin was trying to _help_ him,” Jughead says, his voice tight. “He said he doesn’t know what happened, that—”

“And I’m supposed to take _your_ word for it, Edward Scissorhands?” Reggie says, giving him a dubious once over. “Hell no.”

“Reggie, we don’t have all the information yet, okay? We need to wait for—”

“Betty, come on,” Reggie huffs, looking incredulous. “You can’t seriously want to defend this little freak. They brought their nasty ass Southside drugs into my house and sold them to my best friend and now he’s dead. He’s fucking dead, alright?”

Reggie looks anguished as he releases the word, his shoulders shuddering with something not far off from grief. He digs his teeth into his lip and shakes his head, clearly trying to stave off whatever emotion is clawing into him. He looks back at Jughead coldly. “So yeah, I want to fight you.”

Jughead’s nostrils are flaring with restraint, and he holds very still, as if even a hairline movement will set him off.

It happens in a second.

Reggie shoves Betty aside and dives for Jughead in the same motion, headbutting into his stomach as he forces him back against the lockers with a painful slam. There’s a scream, and Betty thinks it might be hers, but she’ll never know.

Jughead swings his knee up into Reggie’s chest and manages a sickening punch into his jaw. Growling fiercely, Reggie aims a fist for Jughead’s face but before he can make the blow, another body crashes into Reggie from the side and sends him barreling down the hall.

Betty blinks as Reggie gets to his feet. “What the fuck, Andrews!” He bellows.

“Back off, Reggie,” Archie warns, panting heavily but sounding surprisingly calm. “Leave him alone.”

“You should be on my side!” Reggie seethes. “Moose was our friend! Our teammate!”

“Yeah, I am on your side,” Archie says earnestly, his hands in the air in what seems to be an attempt at placating the raging bull manifesting in the form of Reggie Mantle. “That’s why I’m telling you to back off. You don’t want this fight.”

“This is fucking crazy,” Reggie mutters, wiping at his mouth. “You should be helping me, Andrews.”

“Attacking Jughead is just gonna bring a bunch of bikers on your door,” Archie reasons. “And anyway, I believe him. If he says his friend was trying to help, I trust him.”

Archie looks at Jughead, whose eyebrows are pulled together with something odd as he stares back at him.

“Unbe- _fucking_ -lievable,” Reggie breathes, eyes narrowed like the barrel of a gun. “Get cozy, Andrews, because you just made your bed. And you’re gonna lie in it.” He jabs a finger between the two of them. “We’re not done here,” he adds, before stalking off.

The crowd starts to slowly disperse, the murmurings of disappointment that there wasn’t a bigger fight to witness. Betty glances back at Reggie over her shoulder, and her eyes find the Blossom twins. Cheryl’s lips are pursed, and Jason looks, frankly, distraught; almost worse than he had on Friday night. Pale skin hides nothing, and Jason’s eyes are deep set with purple.

Cheryl stares back at her, tugs on Jason’s arm, and then they’re gone.

Betty turns back to Jughead and Archie, who are still eying each other curiously, like two feral cats meeting for the same time. “Are you okay?” She asks Jughead. He nods shortly, and she turns to Archie, who offers her the same confirmation.

“Uh, thanks for that,” Jughead says, almost uncomfortably. He shifts from one foot to the other.

Archie tries—and fails—to look casual. “Oh, yeah. No problem, bro. Reggie was way out of line,” he replies. “Um, and I meant what I said. I believe you.”

Jughead passes Archie a studying look and something seems to shift between them, because after a moment of deliberation, Jughead accepts this with a small grin. Betty gets the feeling there’s a bit more weight to this than meets the eye, but rather several years worth of estrangement breaking to the surface like a diver returning for air.

“Okay, well we’re not gonna hug it out,” Jughead says finally, his voice light and almost skeptical. “So…”

Archie laughs. “Nah, man,” he says.

“You can buy me a burger sometime though,” Jughead adds, shrugging.

“Deal,” Archie replies, smiling broadly. They look at each other for another long stretch, and then Archie dips his thumb over his shoulder. “Okay, well, I should probably get ready for my first class.”

Jughead nods. Archie glances at Betty, seemingly calculating the space between her and Jughead—or lack thereof—and passes them both a well-natured, if curious, smile before turning on his heel.

Betty’s fingers find purpose along Jughead’s jaw, which has begun ticking away again. “Are you really okay?” She asks, craning her neck to catch his eye.

He sucks in a small breath of air. “I mean, punching a football player wasn’t exactly on my bucket list,” he mumbles. He bends over and picks up the nearly forgotten _Register_ newspaper, his eyes dark as they scan across the page.

“How bad is it?” Betty asks, steering him down towards the English hall. She thinks he’ll have an easier time with a conversation if they’re tucked away in the safety of the Blue & Gold office.

“Your parents really outdid themselves on this one,” he says darkly, his feet dragging. “Hard-hitting journalism at it’s finest.”

He passes it back to her as they cross the threshold of the newspaper office, and Betty takes a grim look at it. Jughead is right; her parents did outdo themselves on this. The story spins a heroic tale of Reggie and Chuck Clayton’s valiant attempts to save Moose’s life, only to be thwarted by the Bram Stoker-esque teenage villains of the Southside, seen hovering in the dark hallways of the party as if off in search of virginal blood.

Jughead, Joaquin, and Sabrina are all named, as well as a harrowing description of Joaquin standing over the body of Moose and making weak excuses for a dying boy. 

She recognizes her mother’s hand in the dramatic prose, but she hears her father in between the lines more than anything. There are more than a few paragraphs about expectations and the Serpents biting the hand that feeds them. The words are poisonous and self-selecting, and only ask questions they can answer. 

_Is this the price taxpayers pay when we bail out the Southside time and time again? What kind of end of innocence do we want to bring unto our children? What dark forces are at play and how long will we let this go on?_

She can’t stand to look at it anymore, and balls it up and throws it in the trash.

Betty gets up, and searching for purpose, finds herself at the cabinet where she keeps a little first aid kit. She doesn’t see any broken skin but a good amount of bruising is inevitable, and knows it's better to address the pain before it takes hold, so she hands Jughead a bottle of Advil. He accepts it begrudgingly.

Jughead is silent and brooding, his whole face drawn tight and blank as he sifts through the remains of her backpack that had spilled out in her rush to get writing. His fingers linger over the college pamphlets her mother had given her earlier.

That time feels so far away now. She’d felt so relaxed this morning. She’d even felt hopeful, with her mother’s newfound encouragement, with Polly back at the table, with Jughead warm at her side. That feels bitterly foolish now; she’s no less the silly little girl she always feared she was.

Moose hasn’t even been buried yet and Jughead and his friends are already being accused of second-degree murder by her own parents. And her mother hadn’t directly defamed Jughead to her face but certainly hadn’t skirted around her thoughts on their future. Even Archie Andrews aside, it felt like the whole school had been eagerly waiting for Reggie to beat the shit out of Jughead, like they craved the same revenge darkening Reggie’s eyes.

Despair whispers sweet nothings and the ghost of hope grazes over, causing gooseflesh on her skin. 

 _Lambs to slaughter_ , but she’s not so sure of whom the wolves even are anymore. 

She wonders if justice and confirmation bias are more alike than she feared. Who was she to right the wrongs of an entire town when this was the fight to be had? 

“Hey, Juggie.”

“Hmm?”

“What if we just…got out of here?”

Finally he looks at her, his expression still pokerfaced. “Sorry?”

She sighs and wanders around the room. “What if we just left school and went for a drive or something? It’s still early, if we left right now we could have the whole day somewhere.”

He softens with a smirk, like he thinks she’s joking. “Right. Sorry Betts, I don’t think hanging out with a truant will be too good for my glistening reputation.”

“Juggie, I’m serious,” she says, perching herself on the desk next to him. Her eyebrows nestle in together. “I don’t think I can be here today. The past twenty-four— Well, the last of couple days, really, have just been…a lot. I can’t think straight anymore and I think today is only gonna get worse, with this article coming out and everyone taking sides. I need a reset button, or a break, or just—anything but staying here and feeling like I need to answer for something I can’t even name.”

The last part comes out in a stutter, and Betty hadn’t even been aware this is how she’d been feeling until this instant. _It’s not your fault,_ the dark voice mocks. _But it’s your responsibility. You have to stop it, but you’ll never know how._

“You _are_ serious,” Jughead says slowly. “You want to cut school and, what, go on a roadtrip?”

“Just for a day,” Betty replies, shaking her head. “I just need a day.”

He studies her, then raises his eyebrows. “Okay. Where did you want to go?”

She looks down at the pamphlets on the desk. “Maybe the city,” she says quietly.

 _“New York_ City?” Jughead echoes, now looking fully shocked. “The big one with all the buildings?”

“It’s only a two hour drive, or three if we take the Metro North,” Betty says quickly. He blinks. “I need it. I bet you need it too. Just a day off. Away from all this.”

He runs his tongue along his teeth, but his eyes betray nothing. Wordlessly, Jughead gets up and glances around the room, clearly looking for something.

“What are you doing?” She asks, starting to get nervous with his lack of reply.

“I’m looking for a pen,” he says distractedly, “I just need to get it in writing that you were the one who came up with this, for the inevitable fallout. No one’s gonna believe that _you_ were the bad influence on _me.”_

.

.

.

.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is one of those things that was definitely not part of the original plan---but as i was mapping out the second arc of this story, everything was feeling too dramatic too fast and i wanted to breathe a bit of levity back into this story. i decided that we all needed a break from the anguish, including betty and jughead. that being said, there's still a lot of emotions to sift through between these two and a lot to explore.
> 
> also, no one should ever listen to me when i say i'm taking a break. i keep thinking i'm gonna lose my momentum and need more time but these chapters are coming out of me faster than i would've expected. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> please let me know what you think! the reviews mean so so very much to me and really help encourage the writing process.


	12. Chapter 12

The feverish excitement of impulse dies a quiet death in the parking lot.

“Shit,” Jughead says, staring at his motorcycle. “I forgot I only have one helmet.”

If she _had_ been indulging fantasies of an Allison and Cry-Baby-esque ride into the sunset, she certainly won’t admit it now. “Oh, okay. Well, plan B is the train. It’s only a ten minute walk to the station.”

Jughead stares forlornly at his bike. “I don’t know if I want to leave this here unsupervised. Reggie Mantle seemed like he meant business.”

“So we’ll walk it to the train station. Or you ride it over and I’ll meet you there,” Betty suggests, after realizing the heavy-duty motorcycle is probably too heavy to easily walk with for half a mile. He looks about to protest, but she rolls her eyes. “I’m not letting you offer up your helmet in some act of self-sacrificial chivalry for a three minute drive, so don’t bother. I’ll just meet you there.”

Still looking disapproving, Jughead relents and mounts his bike. After a moment of asking twice if she’s sure, he rumbles off out of the parking lot.

The walk to the station gives her an opportunity to nurse the thought that it’s probably best they don’t ride his motorcycle straight to New York City; then it’d just become a question of logistics and whether it’d be safe wherever they left it or how much it would cost to park it. She wants today to be just about them, and truthfully, bringing that bike into the city will just bring Riverdale with it too.

He’s waiting for her outside the train station—a small, quaint little building that hasn’t seen much use in the last seventy-odd years, she’s sure—leaning up against his bike, his ankles crossed and his arms draped devil-may-care. It’s a thrilling sight to see, if she’s being honest.

She can’t resist throwing her arms around his neck as she greets him with a quick kiss that toes the line of something more. He murmurs something incoherent against the curve of her neck, and when she pulls back, he’s got that same goofy smile on his face he’d had this morning.

“Ready?” She asks, and he nods distractedly.

Tickets aren’t too expensive on the commuter line, though she’s sure that all of three people in town maybe do this travel daily. She nearly offers to buy Jughead’s ticket—it was her idea, after all—but he steps in quickly and orders his own before she can.

The train is quiet this far upstate, though there are a few tired-looking people already boarded. Still, they easily find a pair of seats and slip into it; Betty thinks he’ll sit facing her but he slides in at her side and immediately stretches his legs out onto the opposite seat.

“I’ve never really been to the city. I mean, I went to Coney Island once when I was a kid, with my dad and my sister, but we just went straight there and back. But I haven’t really traveled around much, period,” he says, once the train starts to move. Betty breathes a sigh of relief as Riverdale rapidly grows into a blur.

“I thought the whole point of a biker gang was some sort of Dean Moriarty fulfillment fantasy,” she says, turning back to him and shooting a cheeky smile.

He snorts. “I mean, it definitely is, for some of the older guys. They go up on big drives all the time, mostly up to Canada, or they do jobs in other parts of the state. I think a few of them do some business in the city. But Serpents _have_ rules, if you believe it or not. Like, for instance, no one under eighteen does jobs out of the county.”

She wants to ask what he means by _jobs_ , but she’s reminded that the whole point of this impromptu twelve-hour vacation was to not talk about anything regarding the Serpents, their investigation, Moose, or anything Riverdale at all, really.

“I’ve been a few times with my parents,” Betty says, watching deep reds, oranges, and yellows of fall streak past their window. “But we mostly stuck to museums and plays. It was nice, but it all kind of felt like something you _should_ do in New York, rather than something you actually want to do. That’s my parents for you. But…you know what, I don’t want to talk about them.”

Jughead makes a noncommittal noise and digs into his pocket, retrieving his phone and a pair of white headphones. He passes her an earbud.

“So we won’t,” he says, and then hits play on a song. The opening chords to a familiar twanging folk song fills her ear, and she closes her eyes to the thoughtful musings of Bob Dylan.

 _How does it feel, how does it feel?_  
_To be on your own, without a direction home_  
_Like a complete unknown, like a rolling stone—_

.

.

.

The train slows as it nears Grand Central, and Betty and Jughead stretch upright. The train has picked up quite a few more passengers along the way, and it’s a bit of a slog unpacking everyone from the aisles, but since they don’t have anything but the coats on their backs, it’s not too long before they’re shuffling out onto the main station. Jughead takes in the warm golden lights and celestial ceiling mural with wide, childlike eyes.

“Damn,” he whispers in an awed sort of voice. He dips his chin back down and meets her gaze. “I’ve only seen this place under a Hitchcockian guise. _North by Northwest_ told me what to expect architecturally, but…”

He trails off, but she knows what he means. She reaches for his hand and guides him towards the exit, though his head is noticeably lobbing around, still trying to take it all in even as she leads him out the door.

“Can we get a coffee?” Jughead asks, once they’ve been reunited with the crisp autumn air. He gives her an obvious and forced yawn. She agrees, feeling like she could use a boost of energy as well.

After Jughead looks mortified when she tries to go into the first Starbucks she sees, they find a small, nondescript coffee shop a few blocks away from all the bustling crowds of Park Ave. There’s a something of a line, but Jughead isn’t muttering dark curses about the integrity of mass-marketed coffee, so she doesn’t protest.

“Hey man, nice jacket.”

Jughead and Betty turn around; there’s a guy behind them, maybe college-aged, his hands in the pockets of a dark leather motorcycle jacket. Jughead stares at him, then glances down at his own posture, which mimics the stranger’s to a T.

“Uh, thanks,” he says, slowly pulling his hands out of his own pockets. “You too.”

“Got mine in Bushwick,” the guy says, and Betty gets a better look at him. He’s got a floppy, 90s-era heartthrob haircut that isn’t too unlike Jughead’s and similarly clunky Doc Martens. Jughead himself seems to be realizing this with dawning horror. “This sick little vintage store on Myrtle Ave, very authentic stuff.”

“Oh,” Jughead says, clearly unsure how to respond to that.

They shuffle forward in line.

“Where’d you get yours?” The guy asks amiably.

Jughead eyes him, but seems to decide there’s no hidden threat behind the words. “Um, I got this one from my dad. When I got my first motorcycle.”

“Oh, no shit! That’s legit,” the guy says, clearly impressed.

Finally, Betty and Jughead reach the counter and an excuse to turn back around. They place their order to-go and then shuffle off to the side; Jughead noticeably leads her towards a discreet corner, though his neck is craning around warily. “What did that guy order? If it’s a black coffee I swear we’re leaving the city.”

“Oh my god,” Betty laughs. “You’re so freaked out.”

“Is this what New York is like?” Jughead asks, almost bitterly. “Pod people in leather jackets trying to be original?”

“You’re just pissed because that guy looked exactly like you,” Betty points out.

“I’m not pissed,” Jughead snaps. “And he did not look like…come on, he was such a poser! I’ve poured my own blood, sweat, and tears into this jacket. And it’s a _lifestyle,_ not just an outfit, and I actually even have a motorcycle, and—”

“Well, I thought he was cute,” she quips.

“Okay, we are leaving.”

Their names are called for their drinks, which spares Jughead the remainder of her teasing. They go to gather their coffees, with Jughead all the while peeking around suspiciously like a man marked for death. She hooks her arm through his and steers him out the door and back into the cool New York autumn.

“So what do you want to do first?” She asks, once they’ve cleared a block and Jughead has stopped glaring around darkly over his shoulder.

He glances at her, a gentle smile returning to his face, and takes a sip of his coffee. “I don’t know, these are all your machinations I’m at the whim of. What are you thinking?”

Betty wracks her brain for all the things Veronica has mentioned in passing. She could text her for advice on things to do here, but after her little conniption this morning, she’s not much in the mood for pretending it didn’t happen. Besides, nothing gets past Veronica, and she wouldn’t be able to hide the fact that she and Jughead fled to New York City for very long.

“It’s almost lunch time, so we could eat. Veronica always talks about these pierogis in the Village with great, romantic longing.”

“Pierogis?”

“They’re a Ukrainian dumpling,” she clarifies, at his confused look.

“Hm. Can’t imagine Veronica pining after anything with a carbohydrate base layer,” Jughead muses.

“Oh, the longing came from the fact that she wouldn’t let herself eat them, even when she was living here,” Betty explains. “But I have no such issue. I think the place is called Veselka’s?”

Jughead pulls out his phone. “Yep, here it is. Yelp is raving. Calls it a popular twenty-four-hour eatery for the nearby NYU students and maintains the flavor and authenticity of hearty old-world foods. Wow. Borscht is on the menu. Can’t get that at Pop’s.”

“Can your refined palate handle that, you think?”

“Hardy-har,” Jughead sighs. “I’m not all burgers and fries, you know. A rose is a rose is a rose is a food and I’m not _that_ picky.”

“Yeah, except there was that time you ate some of my baby carrots and then promptly spat them out,” Betty counters, grinning.

“That was a dark day,” Jughead says seriously. “Alright, wanna head there?”

They agree and Betty pulls up her subway map on her phone. They work out to take the 6 train downtown, buy their MetroCards, and amble onto a subway car amongst their countrymen, who range from the highly stylish to the highly exhausted. Luckily, the train is only sparsely occupied, and they easily find two seats next to each other.

There’s a soothing to the sway of the train; something calming, Betty thinks. As if no matter where you’re going you’ll end up home. The lights are dim and nearly flickering, occasionally shrouding the car into darkness as they deepen down the tunnels.

The car whirs along. New York City has a song; not the anxious buzzing of anger or the tender humming of love, but a pitch somewhere in between. Neither kind nor cruel, just is.

Their train car passes another on an opposite track and Betty makes eye contact with a girl through the window. Her head is resting on a boy’s shoulder and she smiles, just slightly, and then she’s gone from view. They looked happy, and Betty wonders how she and Jughead looked in turn.

But Betty realizes no one passes them even a sparing glance; they’re not North and Southside kids gathering uneasy stares or accumulating bewilderment. There’s no unspoken judgment about light and dark and class and privilege, but rather, just two kids on a subway train, quietly holding hands.

“Two more stops,” she says, after checking her phone. He smiles at her, soft and blue.

“Hey,” he says after a moment, his voice odd. “Thanks for convincing me to do this.”

“I think we both needed it,” Betty replies softly, burrowing her head into the curve of his neck. “Part of me already doesn’t want to go back.”

Jughead noisily blows out a long stream of air, as if he’s thinking the same thing. “Let’s just enjoy today,” he says, his arm coming around to rest over her shoulders.

She nods, trying not to let her thoughts wander back to Riverdale. Even only being here an hour, it’s liberating, like the dark spirit of vengeance and anger and death cannot seem to find them amongst the crowds.

It’s funny; she only went down this path because of her desire to name the invisible, but now, feeling beyond anonymous in a big city, she briefly wonders what she’d give up to live this freely forever—and if she ever even truly could.

But why not? No one looks twice at them here. No one gives a damn. They could just disappear amongst the faces; walk away, hands bound and lips sealed, like none of it mattered anymore.

Except that she knows it still does.

.

.

.

The train pulls into their stop and reluctantly the two untangle themselves and exit the train. The early October air is cool and refreshing and the leaves crunch satisfyingly under their feet.

“I feel like I understand Woody Allen’s cinematography a lot better now,” Jughead says. “I always thought he was full of it—I mean, he is, as a person—but as a director, everything always felt too brown and jazzy. But I think I get it now. New York City in the fall feels transformative. Like we’re in the 70s, or something.”

Betty considers this and thinks she knows what he might mean. She’s long written off Woody Allen as a figure, let alone as a director, but Jughead has a point—amongst the red bricks and the white sky, New York autumn feels almost out of time.

Their walk from the Astor place subway stop to the restaurant leads them through an active part of town, lined with cute vintage shops and expensive-looking boutiques. Betty pauses in the window of a few of them, and he doesn’t seem terribly put off by Betty suggesting she wants to try on clothes later until she cracks a joke about finding a motorcycle jacket for herself and he starts muttering about hipsters again.

The people on the streets, as a whole, seem a lot younger than the business types rushing around Grand Central, and Betty remembers that this part of town is where quite a few colleges are situated and files that away for later.

Once they reach Veselka’s, the hostess informs them it’ll be a few minutes wait, so they get a chance to look around before they’re seated. The restaurant is warm and smells thickly of meat and something rich and sweet; Jughead nods approvingly as his nose tests the air.

After settling into their table, Jughead spends a few moments making friends with his menu. “What to get, what to get… Ooh, a meat plate. I’ve never had any of this kind of food before. I mean, Sabrina’s aunt Hilda always makes these big stews in this weird giant pot that’s closer to a cauldron than anything, but even that seems pretty new age compared to these offerings.”

She bristles slightly at the mention of Hilda, which Jughead seems to catch instantly. He puts down his menu. “Shit. Sorry, I don’t know what… We never really talked about that. I mean, uh, what did your mom tell you?”

Betty bites her lip. “I got the cliffnotes version, I think,” she says. “But beyond Hilda and my mom sharing pretty fundamentally different world views, I didn’t get much about her. What’s she like?”

“I can definitely see how you’re related,” he says, grinning conspiratorially. “She’s super tough and I’ve never been able to get anything past her. Ever. She’s very protective of Sabrina too. But…she’s warm. Laughs a lot. And she was really there for me and my dad after my mom and sister left.”

She gets the feeling Hilda and her mother are just two ends of the earth; one sheets of ice, one the ring of fire. She wonders where she lies on the spectrum of Spellman women. “Did you know?” She asks softly. “That she was my aunt? That Sabrina was my cousin?”

He nods, looking shamefaced. “Yeah, I mean…I always knew she had this other side of her family who sent her some money that she didn’t talk to. I didn’t know it was you until that night at Pop’s. She didn’t want me to say anything. I mean, like I said on Friday, it’s not my story to tell,” he says quickly. “She always thought your mom’s side wanted nothing to do with her, but when she realized you didn’t even _know_ about her, and then when you didn’t mind slumming it with me…she thought maybe she could get to know you.”

“Don’t talk about yourself like that,” she says firmly. “I’m not slumming with you.”

She thinks about making a point about her own mother’s Southside upbringing, but frankly, it’s irrelevant, given his insecurities seem to bloom internally. For his part, Jughead looks as though he’s trying not to argue against that, but eventually seems to accept her words after a bit of visceral warring.

Betty folds her arms over her plate and looks down. “I would like to get to know Sabrina, though. It’s always just been me and my sister; my dad was an only child and my mom never talked about her family except to say that she had none. But I’ve always wanted a big family. Actually…” she trails off, her mother’s words about a baby boy being ripped from her arms suddenly ringing through her thoughts. “Oh my god, I can’t believe I forgot about that.”

“What? Forgot about what?” Jughead asks, looking alarmed.

“No, I…” Betty retraces the memory. _Chic,_ her mother said. “So much happened yesterday that I… Juggie, I have a brother. A secret brother that my mom put up for adoption, probably before Polly was born.”

He raises his eyebrows in surprise. “Shit.”

“Yeah, my mom was yelling about it to my dad before she kicked him out.” Jughead’s eyes bulge at that news, but she is too distracted by the memory to explain further. “I’ve never heard her sound so…well, sad. I wonder where he is. I haven’t even had a minute to think about him but maybe he…”

She trails off because the waitress has appeared to take their order and the train of thought disappears as they have to quickly go through the menu; they decide to share a few plates so they can try a range of things, and Jughead orders another black coffee.

“I don’t know how you keep knocking those back,” she says, shaking her head. “You’re gonna give yourself a premature heart attack with all that caffeine.”

He grins at her over the rim of the cup. Her phone buzzes on the table, and she goes to check it.

_Hey B, where are you? K and I were thinking about a much needed off campus lunch_

_I can byob our own cleansing sage_

_Subtle_ , Betty thinks, and wonders how exactly to reply to this without immediately revealing herself.

**_Hey! Sorry! I can’t do lunch today, but maybe Pop’s after dinner?_ **

There. Not a lie. The little ellipsis shows up immediately and then disappears, but after a moment, Veronica replies, _Brava! 10ish? See you then!_

When she looks up, Jughead is watching her. She’s reminded by how handsome he is, with his eyes crinkled and his lips pulled back in something warm. “Which of your royal guard was that, fair maiden?” He asks, quirking an eyebrow.

“Veronica,” she replies, pushing her phone across the table. “Wanted to get lunch.”

“I guess we should head back to Riverdale then. Far be it from me to deny Veronica Lodge anything,” Jughead says, with a hint of an eye roll.

She’d almost forgotten how wary he still was of nearly everyone besides her. “I think you’d like her more than you’d expect, if you spent any time with her. She’s a lover of classic movies too, you know.”

Jughead considers this. “She’s a bit too much of an Audrey for me, but she seems alright for someone who name drops Karl Lagerfeld that much. It’s Kevin I really don’t get. That kid always looks like I’ve just showed up to class covered in mud, or something.”

“Kevin is…sometimes he can be a bit black and white with things, but he really means well. And I mean, his dad is the Sheriff,” Betty says, feeling defensive. Even if she’s butted heads with him recently, he’s still one of her oldest and dearest friends and she wants Jughead to like him. “Once you guys get to know each other, I’m sure you’ll find something in common.”

“Yeah, we do; it’s a blonde riddle wrapped in an enigma wrapped in pastel,” Jughead smirks. “But I know he’s your friend, so I’ll…try.”

She smiles appreciatively, then fiddles with readjusting her spoon against her napkin. “And Archie?”

Something indiscernible passes over Jughead’s face. He dips his head down, deliberating his words. “We were friends as kids. More like…well, I’ve never had a brother, but I think that’s what it would’ve felt like. But after my dad was fired by Archie’s dad, I overheard Fred talking about my family to Archie’s mom and I just…I don’t know, it was kind of a wake up call. For how people really saw us, even people we trusted. I didn’t want to wait around for Archie to tell me something like that to my face, so I just figured it’d be easier to stop talking to him first.”

Betty wonders how early this knee-jerk cut-and-run habit started in him, and how long it’ll be before he tries it on her. She makes a silent vow to not let their relationship be another casualty to the trauma of Jughead Jones without a fight. 

“Sometimes I wonder how different things would be if…I don’t know, if I’d grown up going to school on your side of town. Apparently my dad was really close to sending me there a lot earlier and maybe he should’ve. I used to think that maybe if I’d been a good kid studying on the right side of town, Fred wouldn’t think so lowly of us, then my dad wouldn’t have been fired, and then my mom wouldn’t have left and taken my sister, or—”

“Hey,” Betty says, gripping his hands tightly with her own. “Stop. You’re not responsible for what other people do, okay? I mean it.”

He looks up at her from under his eyelashes, thoughtful and schooled. “Yeah, maybe.”

“Really,” she emphasizes, squeezing his fingers. “And I don’t think you’d be that different if you’d gone to school on my side. You’re very determinedly yourself.”

Jughead chuckles. “Not sure if that’s a compliment. But I think I would be a better person.” He looks down. “Because…I would’ve known you, and you make me want to be better.”

Their cheeks burn matching shades of pink but he doesn’t take the words back. Eventually, he shrugs. “Anyway. I appreciated what Archie did for me this morning. He didn’t have to, but…”

He trails off as the waitress returns with their food, steaming piles of hearty-looking dumplings, brown rice, and cabbage. They both thank her for the plates, and he waits until she’s gone before looking back at Betty. “But I don’t know. I’ve been thinking a lot about this stupid self-fulfilling prophecy problem I’ve got going on and if he wants to try, I will too.”

She doesn’t want to say anything patronizing, but she’s proud of him; it must show on her face, because he gets an embarrassed sort of smile and turns his attention to his food.

“Alright,” he announces, clearly ready to move on. “Let’s see what all the hype is here.”

.

.

.

After they finish eating and pay, they bundle into their jackets and head back outside, feeling full and pleased from all the heavy food. Jughead pats his stomach appreciatively. “I have definitely warmed to Veronica after that meal. I think I’ll be craving those pierogis on my death bed,” he says, reaching for her hand almost instinctually.

She looks down at their laced fingers and smiles, feeling nearly giddy with lightness. Once again she’s grateful she followed the impulse to flee all the way to New York, even if there’s something murmuring in the back of her mind that everything is waiting for her when she returns.

“What next?” He asks, as they start to aimlessly wander down the block.

“Well, we can either really dedicate ourselves to one part of town and do it right, or we can bounce around,” she says.

“Normally I can’t resist the siren call of the patron saint of the half-assed slacker, but in this case I think we should whole-ass one thing,” he replies with half of a shrug. “But really, it’s your call.”

“We could go to Bushwick. I heard about this really great little store on—”

Jughead cuts her off with a loud groan, and she giggles.

“Really though. Last time I was here my mom had this really elaborate schedule, complete with timetables and lunch itineraries. I want to have a relaxing day. Let’s just walk around until we see something we want to do,” Betty suggests, an idea that seems to appeal to Jughead.

They head down a new street and wander aimlessly through the sparsely populated crowds of college students until they reach a window and Jughead stops dead in front of it.

“Hey, if we go in there, can you promise not to make fun of me?” He asks, after a minute of cupping his hands against the glass. It’s a small, almost unassuming little vintage store, but the mannequins are well enough dressed that Betty thinks it’s not as quaint as it seems.

“No,” she replies quickly, “Absolutely cannot promise that.”

He looks over his shoulder at her with an unsuccessful attempt at a scowl, but turns and trots up the steps to the store anyway. He beelines for a mannequin dressed in an outfit of full leather and immediately shuffles around to check the label of the jacket it’s wearing. “Knew it. This is a vintage Schott Perfecto leather jacket from the 80s,” he breathes, almost awestruck. “Damn. If Joaquin saw this he’d flip his lid.”

Once again struck by how much Jughead geeks out once he hits his stride, Betty grins. He checks the tag, and his face falls. “Fuck. Three hundred dollars? I hate it when people know what they have. The internet age has done terrible things to small businesses.”

“I don’t think we’re the first Sid and Nancy to walk through this door, Juggie,” she says. “This is the East Village, not the Riverdale Goodwill.”

“Yeah,” Jughead sighs, deflated. “Maybe I’ll just try it on. Just to see…”

“Knock yourself out,” Betty laughs. “I’m gonna go browse.”

She tips a finger through hanger after hanger; a few things strike her fancy, but nothing too unlike something she already has. She’s inspecting a vintage poodle skirt when Jughead jumps out from around the rack, striking an Elvis-like pose.

“Hey, pretty mama,” he says in a goofy voice, and Betty snorts.

“The jacket looks good,” she says, because it does. _Damn it does._ “Kinda big on you though,” she adds, because she knows the feeling of trying on something you can’t afford and wanting it to not fit.

“That’s what makes it a perfect winter jacket,” Jughead says, with something close to a whine. “You can wear your sweaters and layers under it. It gets really cold on a bike in February.”

She’s not sure what to say to that, not sure if there’s point in encouraging him to splurge on something so expensive when he already looks so resigned. So she picks out the poodle skirt she’d been looking at and swings it against her hips. “If you get that, I’ll get this,” she laughs. Jughead makes a face.

“There’s something a bit too Norman Rockwell about you and that,” he says honestly as she puts it back on the rack.

He sighs, then mutters, “Oh well,” and turns on his heel, back towards the mannequin he’d stolen the jacket from. Betty returns to the clothes in front of her, and then something glossy and black catches her attention.

“I’m gonna go try something on!” She calls across the store, and slips into a dressing room. It’s a struggle to get into the tight clothes, but the result seems worth it as she inspects herself in the mirror. She lets down her ponytail and fluffs out the top before exiting the room to find Jughead.

“Parting is sweet sorrow,” he’s mumbling to the leather jacket as he puts it back on the mannequin.

“Tell me about it, stud,” she says from behind; he whips around, and his mouth falls open.

“Okay, I know you did this just to make that terrible _Grease_ joke, so I almost don’t want to give you the satisfaction, but…” He trails off, running his eyes up and down. She’d found an end-of-film Sandy Olsson outfit, or as close to it as she’ll get; tight black pants made out of some shiny and stretchy material and a dark, off the shoulder top in a matching fabric. She does a little twirl. “Not bad, Cooper. Not bad at all.”

She blushes, looking down at her legs in the outfit. “I always thought it was messed up how _Grease_ spent the whole movie talking about social pressures and connecting with someone beyond your peer group—and then the conclusion the movie has is that a girl has to completely change herself to get her man back,” Betty sighs.

Jughead nods. “For the record, I like all your pink,” he says, with a bit of meaning. She smiles softly at him, then turns to the dressing room to change back into her typical pastel sweater and button up, but she leaves her hair down, liking the way it feels around her shoulders.

She catches up with Jughead by a rack of denim near the door. One in particular catches her eye; an oversized jean jacket covered in embroidered flowers. “That’s nice,” she murmurs, though has a familiar moment of disappointment when she sees the sticker price. “Okay, let’s go.”

“You should ask Sabrina to make you one,” Jughead suggests as they head out the door. “She and Hilda—they do all the custom patchwork for the Serpents. Used to even make some of the jackets, but most kids just wear their parents’ old ones, so there’s not too much demand for new ones.”

“That would explain all the embroidery on Sabrina’s jacket,” Betty replies, remembering the occultist themed patches on her big jacket.

“Yeah, they have this big embroidery machine thing that they keep in this super top secret warehouse—I don’t even know where it is. They bought it off some art school. But I’m sure she’d be more than happy to make a jacket for you,” Jughead says, with some heaviness.

Betty tucks herself around his arm. “Have you talked to her…since?”

Jughead shakes his head. “She told me if I came in contact within forty-eight hours, she’d shoot me on sight. I believe it, and don’t blame her either. I really fucked up. I honestly didn’t even realize what I was doing, but she was right; I did use her as a beard.”

“I’m sure she knows you weren’t being malicious,” Betty says softly.

“Maybe. But it was stupid and selfish. It’s not like it’s a secret that she’s gay, but she’s only been out for a few years, and I was the first person she told,” he mumbles.

She thinks about suggesting that she talk to Sabrina, but doesn’t want to insert herself where it’s not her business. She decides if it comes up organically, she’ll try appealing for Jughead, but otherwise will try to let them work it out. Hopefully once she clarifies things with Sabrina, that’ll cool things down.

They fall silent as they weave through the streets, stopping at random storefronts to window shop or coffee shops to get yet another black coffee for him, but the rest of the afternoon unfurls in an almost a movie montage-like couple of hours.

It’s just what she wanted—her and Jughead alone, far away from their parents and the town—and for a little while, it feels satisfying. But then anxiety spots her amongst the faces and she feels its familiar hot breath on her neck.

She tries not to think about all that’ll happen when they get back—answering for their impulsive daytrip, Reggie and his goon squad cornering Jughead, the witch hunt-like persecution of Serpents that seems darkly imminent—but the longer she’s away, the more ominous going home feels.

Like the moment she wanted to run is the moment she gave it power. 

.

.

.

They decide to grab a quick dinner before making the long trek back home; the sun is setting a lot earlier now, and the air has grown quite chillier as dusk beckons on. After their warm meal of Korean food in some hole-in-the-wall restaurant they’d stumbled past, Betty looks around and realizes they’re more or less back where they’d started the day.

“I think that’s Washington Square Park over there,” she muses, spotting the iconic archway a few blocks down. She pivots around, gathering her bearings. “So that means—oh, that’s an NYU building right there.”

Jughead makes an indiscernible noise, but Betty is thinking about her mother and the college pamphlets. “My mom did something really weird this morning,” she says, as Jughead starts to lead them towards the park. The sun is low over the arch. “She gave me these brochures for a bunch of schools in the city, which before today I would’ve bet my Nancy Drew collection was impossible. I mean, she was clearly hiding them from me, but still.”

“Is this where you wanna go?” He asks, in an odd voice. “NYU?”

“I don’t know,” she says truthfully. “I’ve got time to figure that out. But I like being here, and I think I want to study journalism and I like what I read about their program.”

Jughead glances at her, pale and uncomfortable, and she hears her mother’s warning once again, her voice dimorphic and muffled. He’s resolutely staring off somewhere again. She tugs on his arm. “What about you?”

“Uh,” he mumbles. “I don’t know. Haven’t really thought about it.”

“You haven’t thought about it at all?”

“Okay, maybe a little,” he admits, looking strained. “But…no one in my family has gone to college, Betty. If anyone’s going to, it’ll be my sister, but I mean, come on. How would I even pay for that? It’s not like there’s some Serpent college fund in the Bank of Riverdale. And I’ve read so many articles about corruption in the student loan industry that I know it’s almost not worth it.”

“What about scholarships, Juggie?”

He immediately sours. “Yeah, and how many people am I gonna have to parade my sob story around to before I get some measly three thousand dollars a year? Pass.”

She scoffs, untangling herself from his arm. Frustration snaps at her heels, all of the dark thoughts that had been following her around all day finally seizing an opening. “You’re being ridiculous. Jane Austen would have a few things to say about you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I know you’ve read _Pride & Prejudice_ because you’ve quoted it at me; did you learn anything from that?”

“Oh, for— Pride is all I _have,_ Betty,” Jughead huffs. “Literally. If I start dolling myself out for the pity of some school board, where does it end?”

She exhales, catching her temper before it flares up any further. His chest is heaving slightly. “I don’t want to fight,” she says quietly.

He runs a hand through his hair. “Me either. Can we just move on? We’re only sophomores. We don’t have to deal with this now.”

“You’re right, we don’t,” she says thoughtfully. “But…my mom said something to me this morning and I think it’s important. She said—she wants Polly and me to have options. Based on everything she’s said and done lately, I get the sense that she didn’t feel like she _had_ any options when she was our age, and it took her down a path of a lot of unhappiness. I don’t want that for you.”

“Betty—”

“No, Juggie, all my parents do is manipulate each other, then lie, then keep secrets. I’m not going to be like them. I want to say what I’m feeling when I feel it. I want to be honest. So I want to say something and I don’t think you’re going to like it, but I need you to know I’m saying it because I care, not because I’m trying to change you.”

He looks at her, a bit suspicious but mostly confused. They reach a fairly secluded path in the park, and Betty takes a spot on a bench and gestures for him to join her. “My mom said…that we don’t have a future together. That the Serpents would never let you leave.”

Something pained and shocked crosses his features, but he doesn’t say a word.

“I don’t want to think that’s true,” she says earnestly. “If they’re as much a family as you say, won’t they want you to be your best self?”

He presses his lips together, and she takes his silence as the answer she’d feared. “Juggie, I want you to have options.”

“Oh, okay. Yeah. Look, I get it. You’re already breaking up with me,” He murmurs softly, sounding resigned. “Not that we’re even—but I don’t want anyone else, Betty, I—”

“No, no,” she says, shuffling closer to him. “I’m trying to tell you the opposite. I don’t want to sound like I’ve got some silly schoolgirl idea about the rest of my life, because I don’t know what’ll happen, but I want us to have the _option_ of a future. I _hate_ that I feel like some unseen force is already conspiring against us.

“I thought maybe if we just left Riverdale, I wouldn’t feel so anxious about everything. But it feels like the longer we’re away, the more I think about it. It was stupid to try to outrun something that’s been boiling over in our town for the past seventy-five years,” she says, closing her eyes. “I’ve tried not to be, but I’m a five-year-plan kind of girl. I just am. I don’t want this hanging over me for who knows how long.”

“I don’t understand what you’re saying,” he murmurs, eyes narrowed. 

“I think maybe you want more from life than the hand you were dealt,” she breathes, opening her eyes. Something cold flashes across him.

“I thought you weren’t trying to change me,” he hisses, standing up and stalking off a few feet.

“I’m not! I told you I wasn’t!” She pleads, trying to hold onto his arm to keep him from storming away. “I’m just trying to make you see what I see!”

He stops as her fingers grip into the fabric of his jacket, but he doesn’t look at her. “And what’s that?”

 _Running away again,_ she wants to say. “Juggie, why do you love movies so much?” She asks instead.

Now he looks at her, clearly not having expected that. “What?”

“Why do you think you love movies so much?” She repeats and he seems a loss for words. She throws her arm into the air. “Why do you think you’re so drawn to stories and writing and other worlds? Because I think it’s you trying to distract yourself! And I find it really hard to believe that someone so obsessed with escapism wants to live his entire life in one place!”

He opens his mouth, but no sounds come out. After a moment, he sinks onto another nearby park bench and runs his hands through his hair. “Jesus,” he breathes. “I don’t think I’ll like therapy very much.”

She sits next to him again. “You act like it’s just you against the world. But you’re not the only one with issues,” she murmurs, and he stares at her hands, curled up in her lap.

He gives her an encouraging kind of nod, as if prompting the topic of the little crescent scars forward. She looks down at them, resisting the urge to curl her fingers inward right then and there. 

“I can remember the first panic attack I ever had. We were taking a math placement class and I sat there, thinking about how if I did badly, I’d get put in the stupid class, and then I’d do badly in high school, and then I wouldn’t go to college, and then I’d never have a job and never be happy. I had to retake the test because I made myself sick.”

Jughead blinks at her. 

“It’s called spiraling, and I’m particularly good at it,” she laughs emptily. “Sometimes I get so anxious that I can’t see five feet in front of me. It makes me do stupid things. Like…hurt myself, because it’s the only thing that gives me any focus. I know it’s wrong and I shouldn’t but it’s the only thing that works. 

“And sometimes I’m so angry, I—it scares me. You read about people who commit terrible crimes of passion and they say they couldn’t control themselves. It was like a possession, or some other person doing it. I know what that feels like, more than ever,” she says, almost at a whisper.

She tries to steady her shaky shoulders. “I know we grew up in different worlds and that’ll always effect the way we face our problems. But I’m trying to say—maybe we don’t have to face them alone.” 

She meets his gaze, afraid to see what she expects, but his expression is knotted and worried. He lets out a long breath; something tender shifts across his face. He pulls her cupped hands up to his mouth, where he presses a secretive kind of kiss.

“Okay,” he says determinedly. 

“Okay,” she echoes, nodding. He wraps an arm around her and she accepts it, burying herself against his side. The moon appears from behind a cloud.

“Let's go home,” he murmurs.

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**Notes for the Chapter:**

> since i don't have however many tv seasons to explore these themes of their future and identities being pulled in different directions, it was important to me that this fic addressed that now, as well as a lot of the personal problems i think they have as individuals. 
> 
> real relationships are so much dang _werk,_ even when you have some kind of beautiful and powerful connection, and i also wanted to honor that. 
> 
> that said, this chapter was kind of a slave to my desire to write banter and fluff (and also a homage to my years in NYC) and i got carried away, but it needed to be done because from hereon out the drama moves pretty quickly. i really appreciate feedback and reviews; i always say this, but it does genuinely move the writing process along to hear your thoughts. pls drop a review if you can!


	13. Chapter 13

The train ride home is a further experiment in anonymity. Full of tired commuters home, the journey back is a lot more full of people, though they’re all clearly too worn out to pay any attention to the two teenagers bundled up in the back.

Betty settles in against Jughead and recaps him on the _Days of Our Lives_  episode that was the last 24 hours of her family life. He lets her ramble on about her parent's seemingly inevitable crash collision towards a divorce until he sees the water welling in her eyes, at which points he shifts in his seat and puts his hands on her shoulders.

“Hey, hey,” he says soothingly.

She sniffles up at him. “It just…I don’t know what feels worse, my parents maybe splitting up or me almost wishing for it. All they’ve done is fight all year, and my dad…I didn’t recognize him last night. The way he yelled at Polly made me feel like I don’t know who he is at all. Like maybe he shouldn't come back.”

Betty turns and looks out the window. Jughead sighs. “When my parents separated, it felt like that. They were always arguing and everyone was miserable. Some nights Jellybean and I would sneak into the Bijou when the attendant went on a break, and catch a third of a show, or we’d just sit there until she fell asleep and I’d carry her home once I thought my parents had gone to bed. I _hated_ it and I caught myself wishing they’d just call it quits all the time. But when my mom finally left, all I did was want my family back together.”

He runs his hands through his hair. “My point is—”

“You don’t always get what you want the way you want it,” Betty supplies softly, thinking about her mother’s words.

“Yeah,” Jughead agrees, after a beat. “But also that you shouldn’t beat yourself up, because sometimes things are not that simple.”

“It is, though. Or, emotions are simple,” Betty replies, tapping her forehead against the cool glass. At this speed, the sky is dark and starless. She watches the lights from faraway towns blur on. “It’s people that are complicated.”

.

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.

As they’re pulling into a preceding station before theirs, Betty finally checks the time in her phone. “Crap,” she whispers, realizing it’s 9:45. “I was supposed to meet Veronica at 10.”

“We’ll be there in about half an hour, if that’s anything,” Jughead shrugs.

“I’m just gonna have to reschedule,” Betty mumbles, because she’d rather do it tomorrow than roll in late, exhausted, and puffy-eyed. She taps out an apologetic message to Veronica, who is suspiciously silent for a few moments. She’s always glued to her phone, and types as if her life depends on it.

After a long minute, she responds with, _Oh. Okay! You’ll owe me a good explanation! See you tomorrow! Xo_

She breathes a half-sigh of relief; she hasn’t known Veronica long enough to iron out most of her pet peeves, but she has a feeling that being stood up is quite nearly at the top of the list and there was probably a lot of meaning in that _Oh_.

Betty thanks her, and adds a promise to make it up to her in milkshakes, to which Veronica just replies with an angel emoji. Jughead has turned back to the dog-eared copy of _A Scanner Darkly_ that he purchased during one of their many stops for his coffee—one café in particular had sold books in the back and they’d gotten a bit lost in it.

Clicking her phone off, Betty closes her eyes and settles in alongside Jughead for the rest of the ride.

After what feels like barely a minute, Jughead is gently rubbing her shoulder to wake her. “We’re home,” he murmurs, and they’re the only ones to get off. He insists on walking her home, arguing that his motorcycle will be fine alone for another half an hour. She doesn’t protest too heavily, even though it’s not too long of a trek to her house.

They stop about a block from her house, and she bids him a gentle, promising kind of goodnight kiss, which he accepts with that now familiar dopey grin.

“Thanks for the day,” he says against her lips, and then he's pulling away, walking backwards for a few paces before turning around. When she walks through the door a few minutes later, the house is quiet and dark, save for a small field of light beaming from the dining area.

Polly is sitting at the table, her fist dug into her cheek as she watches something on her laptop with headphones on. Her mother is across from her, reading silently, and her father’s chair is empty, but the house doesn’t feel that way. Rather, her mother and sister look startlingly at peace. Both look up when Betty enters the room.

“You’re home late,” Alice says, in a polite, but clipped voice.

“Yeah, I was working on the paper,” Betty lies. “Lost track of time.”

Alice hums, and Polly passes her a curious kind of look, but Betty just excuses herself and heads straight upstairs. She flops backwards onto her bed, and sleep comes easily.

.

.

.

The next morning’s AP Lit class comes quickly, and Veronica slides into her desk beside Betty, eyebrows arched as she clears her throat. “So,” she says expectantly.

Betty turns to face her friend, about a thousand practiced excuses on her tongue, but Veronica just holds up a silencing hand. Her bracelets jingle with the force of it.

“Relax, B,” she exhales, “You look like you’re about to have a hernia. I’m not mad. You have built up a lot of credit in the Bank of Lodge, and besides, I figure you must have had a good reason for blowing me off last minute.”

“I did,” Betty says, relieved. “Though it’s kind of a long story,” she adds, glancing at Jughead, who has just taken his seat across the room. He looks back at her over his shoulder, lips twitching.

“Just a stab in the dark here, and correct me if I’m wrong, but does it have _anything_ to do with the ridiculous amount of bedroom eyes coming from across the room?” Veronica demurs, with a bit of a cough to catch Betty’s attention. She sits upright, realizing she has no idea how long she’s been staring at Jughead.

“Oh. Uh—yes, sort of,” Betty admits, flushing. She doesn’t want Veronica thinking she’d blown her off for a boy; and while a boy had been _involved_ , running away to New York City had been a lot more about her own anxiety than anything. “A little. Like I said, it’s a long story. Can I tell you everything tonight at Pop’s?”

Veronica runs a studying gaze over Betty’s face, and nods. “Of course,” she smiles. Then, with a small gasp, she pivots back to Betty, her hands in the air excitedly. “Oh my god, I have such a cute idea. Why don’t we make it a double date tonight? Have the boys meet up with us after some much needed girl chat? I love this. We’d be a power quadruple of ABBA proportions.”

“Didn’t they all break up?” Betty asks, wrinkling her nose.

“That’s hardly the point,” Veronica replies, with a quick roll of her eyes. “What do you say? Do you think you could convince Lord Byron to make an appearance?”

Betty glances back over at Jughead, his nose now buried in a book while he waits for class to start. “He and Archie did mend their bridges yesterday, I think,” Betty says thoughtfully, making her decision. “It’s a great idea, V, I’ll talk to him. And I have Archie in my next class, so I’ll pass it along.”

Veronica looks like the cat who got the cream. “Eso es _perfecto_ ,” she says, her voice dropping to a whisper as their teacher enters the room. Jughead throws her one last look before snapping his book shut, his expression turning a little suspicious at the way Veronica is now sizing him up.

His eyes flick between the two girls, but Betty just shakes her head.

.

.

.

She catches Jughead just after class ends; they’re both heading to the science wing, so they make the trek together. “So Veronica had an idea,” she begins, with a voice that she hopes sounds as innocent as she’s trying to keep it.

Jughead groans, throwing his head toward the ceiling. “Napoleon had more subtlety than you,” he says.

“Juggie,” Betty says seriously, wrapping her hands around his arm to get him to look at her. He does so begrudgingly, but his eyes are dancing. “She thought it might be fun if we went on a double date tonight.”

He exhales noisily, but doesn’t look completely disturbed by the idea. “Like, you, me, Veronica, and Archie?”

“Yep,” she chirps, bouncing in her step to show her enthusiasm for the idea. “I was thinking you and Archie could hang out a bit beforehand and…catch up, or play video games, or whatever it is that boys do, and then come meet Ronnie and I at Pop’s.”

He flashes her a wry grin. “Don’t bat those big puppy eyes at me, Cooper, it won’t work. I’m a hardened, jaded biker.”

“That’s true,” she chirps, “But there will be burgers. And milkshakes. My treat.”

“I guess it doesn’t sound like the _worst_ idea,” he admits. “But I gotta teach you about not showing your hand too early. I would’ve said yes at just burgers, but now you have to buy me a shake too.”

Jughead pauses in front of his chemistry classroom. “This is my stop.”

“So, tonight? Really? You’ll call Archie and then come meet us?” She asks, because truthfully she’s surprised she got Jughead to commit to a full night of socializing with her friends. Maybe later she can even convince Kevin to fifth-wheel and try to patch things up between him and Jughead.

“Suppose you have a certain effect on me, Cooper,” he shrugs. “You’ve grown on me. Like mold.”

“Nice. But now who’s showing their hand?” She laughs, leaving him in the doorway to watch her go with deep-set amusement.

In Bio, Betty takes the seat available next to Archie. He greets her with an easy grin as their teacher rambles on about the labs for the day and asking them to pair themselves up.

“Partners?” Archie asks, as if Betty hasn’t been helping him with his homework and agreeing to be his lab partner her whole life.

Betty grins. They settle into the lab work and once they reach the point where they have to wait for their samples to stew, Betty puts down her pencil and turns to Archie. “So, Veronica suggested it might be fun to double date tonight with me and Juggie.”

Archie’s pen pauses on the paper. He looks over at her. “Juggie?” He repeats, with a fair amount of dubious delight. Betty blushes, but there’s no point in taking it back. She likes the nickname for him, and Jughead hasn’t corrected her yet.

“Guess it’s not as bad as his real name,” Archie mumbles under his breath, which catches Betty’s attention. Besides for a moment after introductions, she hadn’t really wondered much about Jughead’s name. Archie turns to fully face her. “Uh, yeah, I mean…I’m down. But I don’t know about getting Jughead to agree.”

“He already did,” Betty grins, and Archie’s bushy eyebrows rise high on his face.

“Wow. So…wait, are you two like…together?” He asks, voice lowering.

“Oh,” Betty says, because frankly, they haven’t had that talk and what they have hasn’t quite been put into words yet. “Yeah. I mean, I think we’re on the same page.”

Archie, never a master at concealing his emotions, looks dumbfounded. Betty frowns. “What’s that look for?”

He shrugs, seeming slightly uncomfortable. “Sorry. It kinda makes sense, when I think about it, but I guess I just…hadn’t, well, thought about it,” Archie says awkwardly, rubbing the back of his neck. He glances at her. “Jughead is kinda sensitive, you know. Just be careful with him.”

Betty smirks. “Are you telling me to not go breaking his heart?”

Chuckling, Archie shakes his head. “I guess not. I just mean that he hasn’t always had the best time of things and he deserves people who are there for him. I… After Jughead transferred here, I was talking to my dad about him and he told me he once said some things when he was upset, and Jughead overheard him.”

Already familiar with the tale, Betty sucks in a breath of air, and Archie looks miserable. “I’d always wondered why he’d stopped talking to me and when I found out why… It really sucked, what happened, and I didn’t do anything to fix it sooner. I should’ve. Anyway, I’m really glad he has you. Even if…”

He trails off, meeting Betty’s eyes, and then grimaces. “Never mind.”

“Come on. What?”

“There’s no way to say this without it sounding totally fuckboy,” Archie says slowly, looking ill at ease.

“Try.”

“I really like Ronnie,” Archie says quickly. “And I’m glad that you and Jughead are together. Really, I am. But it just makes me realize this is it.”

“It?”

Archie swallows. “I mean, I kind of always…I don’t know, I always thought one day I’d wake up and we’d just be married with two kids.”

Betty blinks. A year ago, she would’ve given just about anything to hear him say that. But now, what does he expect her to say to that?

“Archie…”

His eyes squeeze shut and he puts his head in his hands. “I told you it sounds fuckboy. I don’t mean it like that. I just mean that I always kind of thought we were gonna end up together, but I also never actually thought about it as anything _real_. It was just some far off, abstract thing. I never felt… And I don’t mean like I thought you’d be waiting around for me one day. Just that, I don’t know, it was just gonna happen whether I wanted it or not. And last year when you kissed me and it was weird, we—”

“Barely talked about it,” Betty finishes, understanding, and also wanting to put Archie out of his rambling misery. “Archie, don’t worry. I get it. People expected us to be together, and I know that I kind of bought into it too. After Cheryl’s party last year, it was a big moment of closure for me, but you never really got a chance to say what you thought.”

“Closure,” Archie repeats, relieved. “Yeah, exactly. I knew you’d understand.”

“You’re always going to be my best friend,” Betty says softly. “You know that, right?”

The smile that blooms onto Archie’s face is quiet and thankful. “Definitely,” he says.

.

.

.

Betty and Veronica decide to head to Pop’s after Vixen practice, but when they get to the gym, there’s a note posted on the door. _Practice is cancelled for the day_ is written in Cheryl’s neat hand. _See you sluts on Friday._

They stare at it; to their left, Tina Patel approaches and squints at the note. “Is she dead?” She asks dully.

Ginger Lopez appears at her side. “But she’s never cancelled practice before.”

“Told you. Ding-dong, the witch is dead. Come on. Let’s go,” Tina sighs, turning on her heel. Ginger glances back at the sign one more time before following after her friend.

Betty stares at the note, wheels churning. Ginger is right; she’s never known Cheryl to cancel or quit anything. She literally once saw Cheryl throw up from the flu, and then perform an aerial flip five minutes later.

Veronica loops her arm through Betty’s and guides her towards the lockers, where they change out of their t-shirts and shorts, and then make the walk to Pop’s with comfortable, light conversation.

As they pass through the threshold of the diner, Betty spots Agent Drew at his usual barstool. She’d honestly felt bad about the way her mother had yelled at him, but she has also been ruminating on a few of the things that weren’t lining up—namely, Moose Mason and a highly fatal opioid—and thinks there might be a way to needle a few clues out Agent Drew.

“Hey, you wanna grab us a booth?” Betty asks, glancing over her shoulder at him. “I’ll be right there.”

Veronica hums, following the line of Betty’s eye. “Very well,” she mutters, a bit apprehensively, but duteously turns on her heel and heads for the back of the restaurant.

Betty approaches Agent Drew, his back to her. “Sir? Agent Drew?”

He turns, halfway through a sip of strawberry milkshake, and quickly gulps it down. The straw gurgles at the bottom of the glass. “Betty Cooper. Hello,” he says, clearing his throat. “Pardon the milkshake. Guilty pleasure.”

“Mine too, I get it. I’m sorry to interrupt,” she adds quickly. “I just wanted to apologize for Monday. My mom interrupted the investigation when you were just getting started. That was really rude of her.”

Agent Drew gives her a curious look. “No need. That’s hardly an unexpected reaction, and believe it or not, it was not the most severe one I've experienced. Your mother seems like a very nice woman.”

Betty lets out a sharp bark of a laugh. “You don’t have to lie,” she says.

His lips tip upwards at the corner. “Perhaps that was a poor choice of words,” he allows. “But what I meant was—your mother seems like a very caring, protective person. Those are admirable qualities. I would’ve wanted a mother like that.”

At Betty’s confused look, he adds, “I grew up in foster care. So take it from someone who knows.” An odd expression immediately overtakes Agent Drew’s face, like he’s shocked at his own admission. “Sorry. I don’t know why I told you that.”

“It’s okay,” Betty says slowly. “I won’t tell.”

“It’s not a secret,” Agent Drew sighs. “It’s actually a point of gossip in my department, as it were. The problem with working with psychoanalysts is that they’re fairly smug and like to boast about their own evaluations; apparently a childhood in the system is what gives me my resounding reputation for comedy, among other things.”

“Well, for someone without a sense of humor, I think that’s the second joke you’ve cracked so far,” Betty points out. Agent Drew allows a full grin this time, which he promptly tries to hide behind his napkin.

“Perhaps. But I should get going,” he says, dabbing his mouth with the cloth as he slips off his barstool. “Have a nice evening, Miss Cooper. And remember, if you have anything pertinent to share for the investigation, don’t hesitate.”

Betty watches him go for a moment, then turns to meet Veronica at the back booth. “What were you talking about with Agent Mulder?” Veronica asks, a bit icily.

Betty raises an eyebrow. “I was trying to get a bit of information out of him for an article I’m writing,” she replies. That had been her intention, anyway, but Agent Drew had a habit of navigating her inquiries, or at least was skillfully evasive. Still, the admission of his childhood hadn’t seemed like a deliberate attempt at guiding the conversation; in fact, he’d seemed almost unnerved by it.

Veronica harrumphs, bringing Betty’s attention back to her friend. “That man practically _cornered_ me after fifth period on Monday and more or less implied that my father was a member of the mob. Daddy is a lot of things, but Don Corleone he is not.”

Betty thinks about what Agent Drew had muttered about Al Capone and thinks she knows the thread he was following. She doesn’t know enough about Veronica’s father to have an opinion, but the theory is starting to fester. She makes a note to do a little googling on the mysterious Mr. Lodge tonight.

“Still,” Veronica adds thoughtfully. “He is something of an Adonis, for all his proclivity towards rudeness and offense. What? What’s that look for? You don’t think he’s hot?”

Betty realizes she has a deep frown on her face. “No, definitely not,” she says. “He reminds me of my dad, honestly.”

As she says it, her entire body freezes and it’s like her ears are suddenly filled with static. Now that she thinks about it, Agent Drew does look quite a bit like her father. The blonde hair, the long face, something around the eyes—but that wasn’t _possible._  Was it?

The fact that he grew up in foster care, that his name was Charles—hadn’t that been the name of her brother?

_“My Chickadee. That’s what I was going to call him, Hal. Chic. From Charles, for your father. That was the only thing we gave him before you sent him out into the cold cruel night!”_

That’s what her mother had screamed. Chic. From Charles.

“Of all the gin joints,” Betty breathes, eyes blown wide. She turns and stares at the door, even though Agent Drew is long gone. “No way.”

“What?” Veronica says, waving a hand in front of Betty’s face. Betty blinks back at her. “Oh my god, are you having a stroke? You’ve been staring at the table for the past 30 seconds muttering under your breath.”

“Um,” Betty swallows, her mind still racing. “Sorry, what did you say?”

“I asked if you were having a stroke,” Veronica says flatly, staring at Betty.

“Just thinking,” she murmurs, glancing back at the door. As a journalist, Betty’s not a big believer in coincidences, and everything fits. But how would she even broach that topic? Flounce up to him at the station and declare that he’s her long lost secret brother? Tell her _mother_ that she thinks the man she practically threatened with a lawsuit is possibly her son?

But she has no way to prove it anyway, and the odds are beyond astronomical, so she tries to dispel the thought for now. She cricks her neck and turns her concentration back to Veronica, who has settled in on her elbows.

“If you’re done solving the Rubik’s cube inside your head, you were about to rivet me with explanations,” Veronica prompts slyly. “Don’t worry, you’re already forgiven, whatever it is.”

“Well…I sort of was in the city,” Betty says slowly, crinkling her brow worriedly for Veronica’s reaction.

Her dark, painted lips fall open. “The city? New _York_ City?” Her eyes bulge. “I take it back. You are so not forgiven. How could you go to the city without moi? Betty, I’m practically a walking Zagat guide. TimeOut New York once interviewed me! Now I’m just offended.”

Betty laughs. “I’m sorry. It was really impulsive, if that helps.”

“Clearly,” Veronica says, one eyebrow arched pointedly. But her lips are pursed into a smile. “Go on, Rory Gilmore, I’m waiting on baited breath here.”

“I just was feeling overwhelmed,” Betty says quietly. “By what happened to Moose. By the town. By my parents. Everything was just happening so fast and I wanted to go somewhere where I didn’t feel so suffocated.”

Veronica’s face knots up in empathy, and she reaches across the table to squeeze Betty’s hand. “I understand. Believe me. I do. New York has a lot of cleansing power to it. But you could’ve told me, I would’ve gone with you.”

“It was a little bit about Jughead too,” Betty admits. “A lot was happening with him— _to_ him, and I thought he could use the break as much as me. Plus, we were never going to get any time together without prying eyes in Riverdale, so…”

Veronica’s eyes soften. “I get it. If you don’t get to enjoy a honeymoon period at the start, you think you’ll never get one.”

“Bingo,” Betty sighs. “Next time we’ll go. You’re a much better shopping buddy than Jughead anyway.”

“How are things going with Mr. Heathcliff anyway?” Veronica asks, settling back in her seat. Betty pauses as Pop Tate arrives to take their milkshake orders, and once he’s bustled off, she turns back to her friend.

“Good,” she says, something coy worming its way onto her features. “Really good. I mean, I don’t think it’s going to be easy, with the way this town is going. But it’s easy to be around him. He makes me laugh. And we talk about it when we fight and he’s… I really like him, V.”

 _“Swoon,”_ Veronica gasps, clutching at her heart. “Well, I’ll admit I had my reservations about him, with all the scowling—you should warn him about frown lines, honestly—but if he makes my girl happy, Veronica Lodge approves.”

Betty tucks her chin against her shoulder in a bashful kind of shrug.

“We should arrange a hang out session, just the three of us, so he and I can get to know each other if he’s to be your beau,” Veronica adds. “As I’ve yet to see this communicative, apparently hilarious version of Jughead with my own eyes.”

“Sounds good,” Betty chuckles. “So how are things with Archie?”

“Lovely,” she breathes. “Archie is delightfully uncomplicated. After dating trust fund after trust fund, it’s nice to be with someone who is actually totally genuine. I’ve never had a relationship wherein someone didn’t automatically want something from me. Or a friendship,” she adds pointedly, smiling. “I should’ve tried being poor a lot earlier in life.”

Pop Tate arrives back at their booth, a chocolate and vanilla milkshake in hand. They both thank him and accept their drinks; Veronica raises hers in a toast.

“To new relationships, and now that we’ve gotten those boy conversations out of the way, may our next conversation actually pass the Bechdel test,” she says.

Betty giggles, and clinks her glass against Veronica’s.

They settle into amiable chatter; Veronica happily unloads her top five shopping and dining spots in New York City, and Betty silently thinks that Veronica would make a good professional critic. Maybe she can convince her to write for the Blue & Gold, though she’d probably have to pry film and food reviews from Jughead’s cold, dead hands first.

After about an hour and finally resurfacing for air, Veronica checks the time on her phone. “Where are the boys? I’m so hungry I could do something as desperate as eat red meat.”

Betty looks at the clock, and realizes that they are indeed late. “I bet they got held up playing some video game,” she suggests, thinking about the time Archie had tried to get her to play _Call of Duty_ and how focused he’d gotten; she could’ve doused him in ice water and he wouldn’t have looked away from the screen.

But the clock strikes on. Ten minutes becomes twenty, to thirty, to finally— “Alright, now I’m worried,” Betty admits, when Jughead’s phone rings through to voicemail.

“Archie’s isn’t even picking up,” Veronica says, pulling her own phone from her ear. “It must be dead.”

Before Betty can let her worries spiral any further, the door to Pop’s chimes open and the boy in question comes panting through. They both straighten and immediately stand up; Archie is breathing heavily and practically trips from the force he’d used to barrel through the door. They meet him halfway, and up close, Archie looks even more flushed and panicked.

“Archiekins, oh my god. What happened?” Veronica asks. Betty nervously stares at the door, waiting for Jughead to come in after Archie, but he doesn’t.

Archie swallows. “It’s Jughead,” he wheezes, eyes wide. “He’s been arrested.”

.

.

.

.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for once, i don't have too much to say, except that i really wanted to dedicate a chapter to betty's friendships because it's important to maintain those when you start a new relationship. tried to fit kevin in, but he'll be back. anyway! something dramatic this way comes. 
> 
> pretty pretty please drop me a comment and let me know what you thought! reviews are my life force and really help motivate writing.
> 
> edit: also, i added the cover art for this story to the first chapter, which is why the chapter count jumped up (but also i added another chapter bc this fic is literally eating me alive), so please check it out!


	14. Chapter 14

_“What?”_ Betty breathes.

Archie nods, gulping. “Yeah, the cops like…ambushed us on our way here. One of the guys knocked me to the ground because I tried to step in. And then they just shoved him in the back of a cop car and tore off.”

Veronica’s mouth opens and closes once.

“Did they say _why?”_ Betty asks sharply, her mind whirring.

“I don’t know, it all happened so fast. They were talking to him as they were putting him in the car. Something about drugs, and I’m pretty sure I heard Moose’s name,” Archie says. “Jughead told me to call his dad, but even if I had his number, my phone broke when it all happened.”

“Those…jerks!” Betty snaps, her fingers curling inward. She tries to take a steadying inhale. “Okay, we need to find Jughead’s father. Do you think your dad might have his number?”

Archie nods. “Yeah, probably, but my phone—”

“Right, right, you go find your dad. I’ll go to the station and try to talk to Sheriff Keller. Maybe Kevin knows something or can help. Veronica, you—”

“I’ll go home and get the number of my family’s lawyer. I’ll just slow you down in these Manolos,” Veronica says, sparing her heels a fitful glare.

If Jughead were here, he’d probably crack a joke about the Scooby Gang and splitting up to look for clues.

But Jughead isn’t here, and that’s the point.

Veronica and Betty hastily throw a few bills down on their table and then race out the door after Archie. Betty practically sprints the whole way to the station, silently thankful for her rigorous morning jogs.

She hurries up the stairs, looking around wildly for a familiar face. “Betty!” She turns; Sabrina is rising from a lobby seat and quickly striding towards her. “What are you doing here?”

“I heard,” she pants. “Where is he?”

“In for questioning, I think,” Sabrina says worriedly. “I was with Joaquin down by the quarry, and they grabbed him too. Some fucked up charges about that house party and that article. I followed straight over and saw Sheriff Keller hauling in Jug a minute later.”

“Joaquin was arrested too?” Betty asks, her brow creasing. “Why weren’t you? Weren’t you named in the article too?”

Sabrina shrugs. “I don’t know. Sexism?”

Somehow, Betty doubts it, but there isn’t much time to dwell on it. Betty lifts her phone to her ear to call Kevin, but he doesn’t pick up. She leaves him a feverish voicemail and demands he call her back immediately, and then, after fruitlessly arguing with the police officer at the office window for about five minutes, storms back towards the lobby and sinks into the seat next to Sabrina.

Sabrina chews on her nails. “I guess we just wait,” she says agitatedly. “Did you talk to FP by any chance?” At Betty’s look, she clarifies, “Jughead’s dad. I tried calling him but his phone was off.”

“We’re working on it,” Betty replies firmly, and explains about Archie and his dad. If FP’s phone is off too, hopefully Fred will know where to find him. Sabrina looks mollified, if albeit slightly apprehensive.

After a long moment of Sabrina nervously rocking in her seat, she turns to Betty. “So, I guess the black cat’s out of the bag,” she says. “About our family.”

Betty smiles, for the first time in what feels like hours. “Yeah. It’s nice to meet you, as cousins.”

Sabrina looks relieved. “You’re not mad at me, then? About…Jug?”

“Of course not,” Betty says resolutely. “I’m not even upset with him at this point. We…made up.”

“I got that,” Sabrina says, with a knowing, coy look. There’s something deliberately mischievous about her. “I guess screaming at him for a full hour was the kick in the ass he needed. Thank god, because he was driving me batshit. Betty said this, Betty did that, and did you know that Betty has read Murakami? I made the mistake of mentioning I wanted to know you and I got your entire fucking bibliography. No offense.”

Betty blushes all the way down to her toes. Sabrina grins and leans back in her seat, stretching her clunky platform boots out before her. “You can tell him I’m still pretty pissed at him, but I know he didn’t mean it and I’m working on letting go of things. I like you two together, by the way, even if you’re way out of a nerd like Jug’s league. Just means _we_ get to hang out.”

“You still owe me a tarot reading,” Betty reminds her, even though she’s a little apprehensive towards the concept.

Sabrina smiles, long and slow. “That’s right. Well, Aunt Hilda and I were talking, and we’d like to have you and your sister over for dinner sometime. Polly, right?”

Her mother’s name is clearly deliberately withheld, but Rome wasn’t built in a day, so Betty just nods enthusiastically.

“We always have family dinner on the full moon, and there’s one next week, so how about then? I know it sounds kind of murdery, but it’s tradition and it’s fun, I promise.”

“Count us in,” Betty says, finding herself endeared to the idea of a moon dinner rather than put off.

“Groovy,” Sabrina replies breezily. “Hey, I also wanted to ask—what’s the deal with the hot redhead I saw lurking around that diner?”

For such a small town, Riverdale has a fair number of red-haired people, so Betty has to briefly wrack her brain until she remembers Sabrina’s sexuality. “Cheryl?”

“Yeah, the one that looks like Jessica Rabbit,” Sabrina grins. “Do you know which way her door swings?”

“Not sure, honestly,” Betty says truthfully. “I think she’s hooked up with guys in the past, but I mean, I was reading this article about bi-erasure, so I’d never want to assume—”

Sabrina snorts. “I like you, Betty. Thanks. I’ll put her down for a maybe.”

“Regardless, you should know though…” Betty adds clumsily, after a long moment. “Cheryl’s a bit…”

Her cousin waves her off. “Oh, no, I could tell. She seems totally Lady Macbeth. But like, that’s kind of hot.”

 _To each their own,_ Betty hums, though realizes the two might actually make a good pair—Cheryl, for all her demands and prickly takedowns, does seem to care very deeply for those in her inner circle, and Betty has seen how sweet she can be with Polly, even if they don’t currently seem to be speaking.

But Sabrina seems more than tough enough to handle Cheryl’s moods, and impish enough to keep up with her scheming too. There definitely more unlikely couplings.

.

.

.

The two fall into silence, nerves resettling back into the air between them. Sabrina nibbles on her nails distractedly, and Betty practices with curling and uncurling her fingers. She’s about to get up and try at the office window again when a deep voice cuts across the station.

“Where the hell is he?” A man is bellowing, storming up the station steps, a couple of people hot on his heels. Betty doesn’t recognize most of the adults, but notices one of them is Hilda and another is Fred Andrews, with Archie in tote. “Where’s my son?”

Betty realizes this must be Jughead’s father—the resemblance is certainly there, leather jacket and all. Sabrina bolts upright in her seat. Betty follows in suit, and they both hurry to join the gathering crowd of Southside Serpents, gauging from their jackets. Hilda immediately wraps Sabrina in an unyielding embrace, and passes Betty an almost reassured kind of smile.

“Are you okay?” She asks urgently.

“Can’t breathe, Hil,” Sabrina squeaks, untangling herself. “I’m fine.”

Hilda turns to Betty, seeming like she’s about to say something, but Sheriff Keller has appeared from around a corner and FP Jones looks like he’s about to punch a hole in a wall.

“What kind of jacked up crap are you accusing my son of, Keller?” He shouts, storming forward. “I wanna see him.”

Sheriff Keller holds up a pair of placating hands. “Whoa, whoa, hold on now—”

“You can’t keep a parent from seeing their kid if they’ve been arrested, Sheriff,” Fred Andrews intercedes calmly, stepping forward.

“Yeah, my boy has rights,” FP snaps, jabbing a finger at Sheriff Keller.

Whatever Sheriff Keller is about to say, he doesn’t get the chance, because Agent Drew is hustling up the stairs and heading straight for them. “What is going on here?” He demands, looking uncharacteristically ruffled. “Why did I get a call from a goddamn New York City lawyer telling me I have no case against Jughead Jones and to drop my charges? Did you make an arrest?”

Sheriff Keller pales slightly, but holds his ground. “We had an anonymous tip—”

“Of course you did,” Agent Drew snaps, moving further into the sheriff’s personal space with a menacing coldness. “Well, let me make this very clear, Sheriff. _I_ am the special agent in charge of this case, and _I_ don’t answer to the mayor or the richest families in town. And I’ve about had it with all the small town politics interfering with my investigation. You don’t make arrests on my behalf, period. I want anyone you’ve charged to be released. Now!”

Sheriff Keller inhales forcefully, like he wants to argue, but turns on his heel and goes back the way he came. Agent Drew pivots, glancing briefly at Betty. With his eyes narrowed, she sees so much of her father in him, and her mother too, now that she’s looking for it. Or _is_ she just looking for it? Seeing what she wants to see?

“Special Agent Charles Drew of the FBI,” he says, voice still a bit pinched. He offers his hand to FP. “I’d like to apologize on behalf of the police department. I was not ready to make any arrests in the case at this juncture, and it was presumptuous of—”

“Yeah, yeah,” FP mutters gruffly, taking his hand for the briefest of moments. “FBI, huh? Some tight ship you’re running.”

Betty thinks she knows Agent Drew well enough to assume that being told he has a disorganized department is probably his worst nightmare, but he takes the comment in stride. “Again, I apologize.”

FP eyes Agent Drew suspiciously, but is distracted by the shuffling figures Jughead and Joaquin emerging from around the corner. “Hey,” he says, meeting them halfway. His eyes flit from boy to boy. “You both okay?”

Jughead’s head is bowed and he nods curtly, eyes down; next to him, Joaquin shrugs vaguely, as if to say, _No big deal._ But beads of sweat sit palpably on his forehead.

“Let’s get out of here,” FP says heavily, placing a guiding arm around each boy. When Jughead looks up, his gaze immediately finds Betty. He leaves Joaquin with FP and walks over to her, hands in his pockets. She hugs him tightly.

“What are you doing here?” He asks, flashing a look at his father before melting into her hold, his arms coming around her waist.

“Archie told us what happened. I came straight away,” she says breathily. They untwist, and start to walk out of the station, Jughead’s arm hanging around her shoulder. She throws Agent Drew one last passing glance. “I can’t believe they tried to pin this on you.”

Jughead scoffs bitterly. “I can. I’m surprised it didn’t happen sooner, to be honest.”

“It’s wrong,” she insists.

“It’s easy,” Jughead sighs. “We’re high-quality targets.”

They return to the station parking lot, dimly lit and flickering. They both notice Archie lingering at the back of the crowd. Fred is already standing off to the side, his arms crossed, but his expression vigilant.

“You good, bro?” Archie asks.

“Sure, why not,” Jughead says, with a bit of a smirk. At Archie’s puzzled look, he adds, “Yeah. Thanks for calling my dad. I don’t know how long we would’ve been in there if he hadn’t gotten us out.”

“Actually, that was Agent Drew,” Betty supplies, and Jughead looks stunned. “I think Veronica’s lawyer called him. He was really mad. He said the sheriff couldn’t make arrests on his behalf.”

Jughead hums noncommittally, but seems to be absorbing the information with interest.

“Is there anything else we can do to help?” Archie asks, after a moment. He glances over at Fred. “I mean, are you sure everything is—”

“I’m fine,” Jughead interrupts quickly. He seems to catch himself, because he then smiles. “I’ll see you later. You still owe me that burger. You both do, actually.”

“Cool,” Archie exhales. “Uh, and that new game I was telling you about should be here next week, if you wanna come over and play it.”

Jughead grins and rolls his eyes. “Your funeral, but sure.”

Archie chuckles and looks at Betty as he starts to back away. He points at Jughead. “If he tries to tell you he won in _Black Ops,_ he’s lying.”

“I don’t even know what that means, but okay,” Betty laughs, and they both wave Archie off.

Jughead turns to her. “I did beat him, you know.”

“Did you want me to get a measuring stick?” She blushes a bit at her own newfound crass, but it’s worth it for the look on Jughead’s face.

“Ten points from Hufflepuff for vulgarity, Cooper,” Jughead replies, eyebrows raised.

“Hey, kid.” They spin around as one of the Serpents is breaking off from the crowd. He stalks over, and Betty gets a good look at him—the slouchy, long beanie and scruffy beard are benign enough, but with his threatening expression, he looks distantly like danger. “What did you say to those pigs in there?”

“Nothing, Mustang,” Jughead growls, his whole mood souring. His arm around Betty tightens. “We didn’t talk. We know better than that.”

“They split you up though, right?” Mustang presses. “How do you know the other little bird didn’t squawk?”

“Ask him yourself,” Jughead bites out tersely, though FP and Joaquin are muttering quietly between themselves and given the way he’d led the pack into the station, Betty thinks FP might have too much authority for a guy like Mustang to interrupt him. Jughead’s face turns suspicious. “What do you care, anyway?”

“You watch your goddamn mouth,” Mustang hisses. “One of these days you’re gonna learn where being a smartass gets you.”

Jughead’s lip curls, but FP has marched towards them, Joaquin in tow. “Everything good here?” He asks, eyes flashing at Mustang.

“All hunky dory, Dad,” Jughead says lowly. Betty looks at him; something is calculating on his face.

“What he said,” Mustang mutters, stepping off. He slinks back to the group of other Serpents.

FP turns to Jughead, patting Joaquin on the shoulder. “Joaquin is gonna crash on the couch tonight. His mom’s not feeling too well.” He says it casually, but Joaquin’s eyes find purpose on his shoes and he wanders off to the side.

Jughead nods once. He doesn’t seem surprised, like perhaps this happens often. “Copy.”

Betty realizes she hasn’t introduced herself and, with an enthusiastic burst fueled by a crippling fear of seeming impolite, shoves her hand at FP. “Hi, Mr. Jones,” she says quickly. “I’m Betty Cooper. I’m Jughead’s…” She glances at him. Now’s probably not the time to broach labels. “Friend.”

FP makes an indiscernible noise in the back of his throat; he gets a studying look in his eye that she recognizes as common in Jughead. “FP Jones,” he says, returning the handshake. He uses his free hand to scratch at a freshly shaved jaw. “Betty, huh? You wouldn’t happen to run some sort of school paper, would you?”

Betty nods, her ponytail bouncing. “I do, sir. Jughead works with me on it.”

“I’m getting that,” FP says slowly, looking at his son.

Jughead looks murderous. _“Dad.”_

FP seems to be biting off a smirk as he stares at Jughead. Betty certainly sees where Jughead gets his observant intensity, though there’s something a bit more experienced about the way FP sizes people up. Like a thief hazarding for exits, or a gambler looking for tells.

“Alright, alright,” FP says, with something like amusement, and slaps his hands against his thighs. “You coming, kid?”

Jughead shakes his head. “I think I’m gonna hang out with Betty for a bit.” He looks at her, a message behind his eyes. “I’ll be home later.”

His father seems contemplative. “Be a gentleman, you hear?”

“He always is, Mr. Jones,” Betty supplies softly, smiling at Jughead, who rubs behind his ear.

FP hums something under his breath and shifts away, back to the crowd of Serpents to seemingly make goodbyes to the others.

“Betty!” They all turn to see Kevin jogging up towards them. “I got all eight thousand of your calls. I came as quickly—” He stops a few feet in front of them and gestures at Jughead. “I thought you said he was arrested.”

“ _He_ was,” Jughead mutters curtly. “But the good Sheriff of Nottingham had to let me go.”

Kevin narrows his eyes at him, then pinches at the bridge of his nose and sighs. “Okay, can we not?”

Jughead looks somewhat taken aback, but with his eyes closed and his fingers still holding the top of his nose, Kevin continues, “Believe it or not, I only like soap operas because I don’t have the energy for it myself.”

His hand drops and the two boys stare at each other. He turns to Betty. “Look, I’m sorry. This whole…thing puts me in kind of an awkward position, you know? My dad’s only ever been a cop. It’s the only life I know. But—” He eyes Jughead. “—Betty is the best judge of character I know, and I trust her opinion, so you must be a good person. Can we start over?”

Jughead’s eyes flit between Betty and Kevin, before finally landing on the boy opposite him. “Yeah,” he says, offering Kevin his hand. They shake, and Betty feels her heart about to burst with affection for both of them.

“Oh, get that smile off your face, Investigative Barbie,” Kevin rolls his eyes at her. He and Betty exchange grins. “So is everything okay now? What happened exactly?”

“Depends on your definition of okay,” Jughead says with a shrug. For a moment, Kevin looks affronted, as if he thinks Jughead is still being rude, but then seems to realize that’s just him. “Apparently there was an anonymous tip saying that Joaquin and I were the ones selling drugs the night of Reggie’s party. But besides the fact that we _weren’t,_  they didn’t have anything on us anyway.”

“Joaquin?” Kevin asks, brow furrowing. “Why does that name sound familiar?”

Jughead gestures over Kevin’s shoulder. “That’s him.”

Kevin turns, and meets Joaquin’s eye. He’s still lingering off to the side of both the teenagers and the adults, but returns Kevin’s gaze curiously. After a long moment, Kevin twists back to them. “Don’t know him,” he says, in an offhand voice. Then he sighs. “How about this? I’ll go talk to my dad, see if I can get any information. Not that I _live_ to put myself in the middle of things, but you were right, Betty. What happened to Moose shouldn’t happen again.”

A look passes between them. Their friendship was at least partially built on their equally strong morals, and Betty’s very grateful for Kevin in this moment.

“That would be great, Kev,” Betty says honestly.

“Alright, I’ll call you later,” he says, and with one last parting look over his shoulder, he’s jogging up the steps and out of sight.

.

.

.

After Kevin disappears into the station, the rest of the group breaks off. Joaquin, FP, and the rest of the Serpents depart, and Sabrina throws Betty a hand signal that mimics a phone and mouths _Call me_ before slipping away.

Betty and Jughead agree to head to the Blue & Gold office, even though the school is dark and locked by the time they get there. “The benefits of student council,” Betty says as she pulls out her big ring of keys and shoulders her way through.

“So, I was thinking,” Jughead says, in a voice that’s a little too careful, “we could maybe go for a ride this weekend? I mean, I found my dad’s extra helmet, and…we didn’t get to eat tonight, so maybe we could…eat…this weekend.”

“Jughead Jones,” Betty gasps, facing him. “Are you asking me on a date?”

He shrugs, hands in his pockets, his cheeks tinged. “Maybe.”

“A _picnic_ date?”

“I said there would be food.” He looks at her from under his lashes. “Is that a yes?”

“It is,” Betty says, deciding she doesn’t have the capacity to let him squirm. They don’t have far to go, but she reaches for his hand for the rest of the walk to the Blue & Gold.

.

.

.

When they get to the office, Jughead drops into his favorite chair with all the aplomb of a deflating balloon.

“So how are you feeling?” Betty asks, perching herself on the desk in front of him.

“Besides the renewed sense of deep-set cynicism?” Jughead asks, in a blasé voice. “I’m okay. I’m more surprised that I’m _not_ surprised. After that article came out, I figured it was only a matter of time.”

She doesn’t know what to say to that. “What did Sheriff Keller ask you?”

Jughead sighs and fiddles with pressing his pointer finger into the wood grain. “Rehashed the past, brought up how I was fitting in to Riverdale High, tried to bait me. Told me if I could make a deal if I confessed and left Joaquin high and dry.”

Betty lets out an angry huff, too frustrated for eloquence. “It’s just so wrong! And lazy! And what was up with that guy outside the station? Why was he questioning you on what happened? Obviously you wouldn’t give up your friends—your family—like that. Why was so he nervous that you’d confess on the Serpents?”

He shakes his head. “I don’t think he was.”

“What do you mean?”

Jughead digs his tongue into his cheek thoughtfully. “Nervous isn’t the word I’d use,” he says carefully. “He seemed…angry.”

Her brow furrows. “Angry that you’d been arrested?”

“Or angry that I’d been released,” Jughead suggests grimly. “I don’t trust that guy. Haven’t since…” He pauses to look at Betty, jaw ticking away. “Remember when I told you I’d gotten a little roughed up last spring?”

Betty’s heart gives a pang. “Yeah, for the novel.”

Jughead releases a self-deprecating kind of jeer. “Right. I was telling Sabrina and Joaquin about it one night at the Wyrm, and the next day, I got pushed into an alley, and…well. I didn’t see their faces, but after I’d told Sabrina and Joaquin about the story I was writing, I’d seen that guy, Mustang, hanging around within earshot. I wasn’t sure, because it could’ve been anyone and I’d rather not assume I got beat up my own crowd, but he was the only one around. Today made me remember all that.”

Betty digests this. “Did you tell your dad?”

“No,” he sighs. “He only just got back on his feet last year and he was already so upset I’d been attacked in the first place. If I told him I thought a fellow Serpent had done it, there’d be an all out mutiny, and I don’t know what that’d do to him. He’s kind of had some control issues in the past,” he adds, looking slightly embarrassed.

Betty doesn’t know what “control issues” means, but her brain immediately goes to the worst. Jughead seems to catch her train of thought, because he quickly moves to her side at the desk, their shoulders bumping. “Not like that. He’s an alcoholic. The day-drunk and passed out kind, not the angry kind.”

This surprises her a bit. FP had seemed, like most of the people in Jughead’s life, a little rough around the edges initially, but more or less a figure of authority. “He’s doing okay now though?”

Jughead sighs heavily. “Yeah, he is. Things were worst right after my mom and sister left. But it’s been a few years now, and after a bit of ultimatums on my part, he seemed to get I wasn’t bluffing.”

It’s a bit vague, but Betty ignores the instinct to push him on specifics, because she gets the picture and he’ll get there when he wants to.

“But if it _was_ Mustang,” Betty says finally, “then doesn’t he have to know? Isn’t your dad kind of…the boss?”

Jughead passes her a wry look. “No, he’s not. Why do you say that?”

Betty shrugs, blushing. “He just seemed like he was in charge, when he showed up at the station. And the way the other Serpents were treating him…”

He might look almost proud, but he swallows it. “Well, there’s about five or six Serpents who more or less call the shots. It’s divided up by neighborhoods. My dad heads up Sunnyside, but—”

“You guys are using the _feudal system?”_ Betty sputters.

“Jesus, no,” Jughead laughs. “There’s no autocracy here—there is no Serpent Boss, like some level to unlock. It’s more like a city council, I guess. Or, I don’t know, stupid Marvel ruined all the cool Greek metaphors. It’s like the hydra serpent. So there’s always another head if you cut off one.”

Betty recalls the time Jughead had unleashed onto a Marvel rant and thinks she gets it now; Jughead is protective of his literary parables, especially the ones that apply to himself. “And is Mustang another head?”

Jughead shakes his head. “No. He’s low level.”

“Then why was he there? At the station?”

“He and Hilda are kind of on and off. I’d guessed he came with her.” At Betty’s frown, he adds, “Yeah, I know. She could do a lot better. They’ve broken up a lot but he keeps getting her back, somehow. He works for her in the patch business, so I think makes it harder to end things.”

Betty’s mind chugs along with the new information. She feels like she’s staring at a painting too close up; all she sees are brushstrokes and color, but no discernible shapes. But she feels close to understanding it.

When her eyes refocus, she realizes Jughead is watching her. Tentatively, he reaches out and rubs a thumb against the skin of her cheek with a delicacy that seems to contradict the intense look in his eye. 

“What?” She asks, craning her neck up at him. His thumb moves further over her jaw line, leaving gooseflesh where it touches.

“I just like your thinking face,” he says, lips lifting. “What’s on your mind, Cooper?”

“Feels like we’re close,” she says, and it’s not what she means, but they are. He leans in.

The kiss is gentle, and unlike the others thus far. It feels like breath hot on her neck, or cupping her hands around a warm drink. They shift against each other; at some point, Jughead gets up to stand between her legs. When they break for air, Betty realizes his hand is low on her back.

They don’t move, noses touching, their breaths heavy and mingling between themselves. “Hm,” he murmurs. “Sorry. What were you saying?”

“I forget,” she sighs. Then she gasps, her eyes widening as something in her mind clicks into place. “Mustang.”

“Ugh.” Jughead looks disturbed. “Feel like this should go without saying, but can you _not_ say his name after _that,_ please?”

“No, no, Juggie,” she says, jerking her head back and looking him in the eye. “It’s him. He’s the missing piece. This is break we’ve been waiting for.”

.

.

.

.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> edit: sorry, was fiddling around with chapters and realized i accidentally changed the posting dates. whoops, fixed!
> 
> headcanons, headcanons. just really into this kind of marxist version of the serpents, i guess. and honestly nods to cheryl x sabrina have been planned from the beginning, but i was pleasantly surprised to see the actress mention that she'd like cheryl to be bi and have a relationship with a new character, because please god, i love the idea of cheryl and sabrina. 
> 
> also, finally got to kevin x joaquin, who, despite my best efforts, just didn't fit in anywhere earlier with all this plot. but seeds are planted. 
> 
> somehow i don't have a lot else to say in this author's note, except that if you haven't had a chance, please check out the cover art i added in chapter 1! and that i really, really, really appreciate comments. makes me write a lot faster!!


	15. Chapter 15

Jughead looks at her, eyes moving rapidly across her face. “Okay, you’ve got my attention.” he says slowly. “Go on, Cooper. I’m listening.”

Betty extricates herself from his arms and crosses the room, where she grabs and wheels a whiteboard back towards the desk Jughead has hopped up onto. She uncaps a pen and turns to him.

“So there are a few pieces to this puzzle, right?” She asks rhetorically. He nods, and she then twists back to the whiteboard to write SERPENTS in big letters on the far right side. “First, the Serpents. This is where it all started, right? The attacks. Motorcycles getting run off the road, storefronts being vandalized but never looted…you getting beat up. And so on.”

She writes FENTANYL below. “Then, the overdoses. At first, it just felt like drugs targeting those suspectible to it. Didn’t know where they were coming from. But I’d thought they were connected to the attacks for a while, and when you said that you got roughed up for writing about it, that pretty much confirmed it.”

Betty draws an arrow between the two words and stares back at Jughead. “We figured that the Serpents were getting targeted for not wanting to sell the fentanyl, but we didn’t know who from.” She pauses. “Wait, you said that Joaquin was arrested during a retaliatory attack on a gang from Greendale?”

Jughead nods slowly, seeming to realize her train of thought. “Yeah, we thought it was them vandalizing our businesses. It wouldn’t have been the first time.”

“Right, a convenient enemy,” Betty says quickly, a feverous sort of excitement flushing over her. She scribbles the name MUSTANG to the left of the other two words, and circles it. “A little too convenient.”

He blinks at her. “You think it was him?”

There’s nothing in his voice that gives any indication of what he might be thinking, so Betty bites her lip. “I know you might not like this, but I think we have to consider the possibility that this might not be entirely us vs. them. I was so obsessed with proving the town wrong about all Serpents that I didn’t consider the possibility that it’s…a big gang. We’re no better than the police if we look at this black and white. There are hundreds of Serpents. You yourself said you don’t trust Mustang, and you thought it was possible he was behind your attack, because you were looking into the overdoses.”

Jughead’s face holds blank. Then he curses.

He pushes off the desk and kneads the balls of his palms into his forehead. “You’re right,” he breathes. “Shit. _Fuck_. Maybe that’s it.”

Sighing, he runs a hand through his hair. He appears a furious kind of sad. “Look, for a lot of people, being a Serpent is about community. Looking out for one another. Helping kids. Supporting their families. But there are some of them who…think that being a Serpent should be a little more financially sufficient, who would maybe want to make a power grab or that there should be one leader. Mustang is definitely one of those guys.”

“Guys who would be willing to deal hard drugs,” Betty concludes, relieved Jughead hasn’t reacted as defensively as she might’ve initially thought.

“Fuck,” he mutters again, pacing. “When I think about it, it’s so obvious. The attacks were too organized—like they knew where people would be, or they knew when stores would be empty or—fuck. It’s coming from the inside.”

He looks so dejected and her whole body feels for him. She crosses the room to him, and takes his hand. “It’s not like everyone is in on it,” she says delicately, her other hand finding his jaw and guiding it towards her so he has to meet her gaze. “Your dad, Joaquin—”

Inhaling so loudly and shakily that it interrupts her, his eyes squeeze shut. When they open, they’re cloudy. “My dad doesn’t want me to know everything,” he says quietly. “Like I said, us underage Serpents get maybe half the picture. I bet that’s why my dad made me transfer schools; because I was getting too close to the truth.”

“Then let’s get it,” Betty says urgently, using both hands to cup his face. “No matter what.”

Jughead stares at her. Something passes between them; a silent vow.

She returns to the whiteboard. “But what I don’t understand is how the drugs got from Mustang to Reggie Mantle’s house party?”

He joins her next to the two drug boards, eyes flicking between them. She does the same, and her gaze lands on a particular index card. “Wait, _jocks_ ,” she says suddenly, hitting his shoulder excitedly. “It was one of the very first things you said.”

Nodding, Jughead rubs at his chin. “Statistically, rich, white, popular athletes supposedly make the most effective drug dealers. Profiling, privilege, et al.”

She taps her fingers against her crossed arms. “Kevin said that the Feds were brought in because the drugs were crossing state lines. So Mustang is either moving the drugs in and out of the state, which makes sense, since he’s in a motorcycle gang, or he’s cutting the drugs here himself. Or both. And then he turns around and recruits someone from Riverdale to expand the market?”

“Makes sense,” Jughead says lowly. “But who?”

Betty nibbles on her lips, hating the thought that festers at the worst of her imagination. “Jason Blossom,” she says quietly, with finality.

Jughead’s eyes land sharply on her, almost incredulous. “Your sister’s boyfriend? _That_ Jason? He who throws the football? Local Golden Boy of the fabled American Dream?”

“Think about it, Juggie.” Betty’s voice is almost at a whisper. “There’s no one whiter, more privileged, more popular, or more of a jock than Jason Blossom. And I _saw_ him the night of the party, and he looked terrible. At first I thought he was really drunk, but he might’ve been high. Polly said he’s been really hot and cold lately—trying to push her away, and then freaking out and wanting her back. And have you even _seen_ him recently? He looks worse every day. Like maybe out of guilt for what happened to Moose? He _was_ his friend.”

“Damn,” Jughead swears, rubbing his thumb against his lips. “That might be it.”

Betty paces in front of him. “But why would he even start selling drugs in the first place? What’s to be gained for that? Money? He’s already the richest kid in town.”

Jughead shrugs. “Honestly, from everything I’ve read, white, jock drug dealers usually take it up because they’re rebelling against their parents. Or they’re bored, or ignored, or responding to one or all the supposed trappings of wealth.”

“Okay. So Jason starts selling drugs because he’s acting out and gets in way over his head. That could make a lot of sense. I know that Polly doesn’t much like his parents,” Betty muses thoughtfully. “They’re not good people. They’ve always been very cold to her. And our parents absolutely _hate_ them, my dad especially. It’s some ridiculous story about the Blossom family business. Apparently the Coopers were cut out of the syrup industry.”

“They’re not the only ones,” Jughead mutters. She glances at him curiously, so he adds flatly, “My family too. The Jones were also a founding family, believe it or not. My grandfather ran a glass blowing factory; we made all the maple syrup jugs for the Blossoms. The company went bankrupt when my dad was a kid…he says it’s because his father picked a fight with old man Blossom and so he took his business elsewhere.”

Betty’s mouth opens, surprised. He continues, “I don’t know if that’s true because my dad lives for his excuses, but the Blossoms are vengeful little flowers, so it’s not exactly out of the realm of possibility. But: maple syrup jugs—thus, _Jug-_ head. It’s kind of a sick joke of a nickname, when you think about it, but I don’t know, I always thought that made it pretty fitting.”

It’s one of his self-deprecating jokes again, but she’s realized they belie a very real insecurity, so she presses her head into the crook of his neck and sighs.

“I like your nickname,” she says softly, staring at the index card for JOCKS pinned to the corkboard. Her mind is half racing with conspiracies about Jason Blossom and half trying to focus on uplifting Jughead. “Even if I still don’t know your real one.”

“It’s Forsythe,” he says, voice small, after a very long moment of staring at the ceiling. “Forsythe Pendleton Jones III.”

She pulls her head back to look at him properly, unprepared for his name to be that. It’s really quite regal, but she can see how that would make him uncomfortable. “Wow,” she replies slowly. “You want fries with that?”

It’s perhaps the only thing she could’ve said in that moment that would make him smile, and it’s incredibly successful. He throws his head back with a full laugh. “Damn, Cooper,” he says, shaking his head. “I knew I liked you.”

Then he points a finger at her. “You take that secret to your grave, by the way,” he says seriously.

“Scout’s honor,” Betty agrees, though she’s sure she’ll find ways to tease him about it. She settles back against his shoulder and returns her eyes to the two drug boards. She exhales, too distracted with dark thoughts to enjoy the moment of brevity.

“I wish I didn’t feel so sure it’s Jason,” she says quietly. “Polly really loves him.”

Jughead scratches behind his ear. “The fact that you don’t want it to be him means it probably is,” he sighs. “Sorry. I know that doesn't help.”

It’s normally the kind of bluntness she appreciates about him, but he’s right. It doesn't help. She rubs her temples, closing her eyes. “Ugh, and she’s pregnant with his babies, too, Juggie. God, this is a mess. But if he really is involved with this, even if he didn’t know what he was getting himself into, even if he doesn’t know what he’s really dealing, we have to know for sure. I can’t let Polly get dragged into this.”

Jughead nods gravely. “So what do we do?”

“I think we should tell Agent Drew,” Betty announces. Jughead looks apprehensive. “He’s not Sheriff Keller, Juggie. He wants to do the right thing.”

“A lot of people want to do the right thing,” Jughead says under his breath, his jaw squaring. “A lot of people think they’re _doing_ the right thing, including the good sheriff here. Everyone is the hero of their own story, Betts. But sorry, no way am I going back there without proof. I literally _just_ got out of interrogation. Who the fuck is gonna believe _me_ when I march into the station and accuse the son of the richest family in town of dealing fucking _fentanyl?”_

She understands where he’s coming from, but he doesn’t know Agent Drew like she does. Even if he _isn’t_ her long-lost brother, she still trusts him. But as she opens her mouth to tell him this, her phone rings across the room.

Betty passes him a pausing look and digs for her phone in her jacket pocket. It’s an unknown number and she squints at it. “Hello?”

“Hi Betty,” Polly says across the line. Her voice sounds very odd—something determined in it, but mixing with nerves. “So I need you not to freak out.”

“What’s going on, Pol?” She asks, exchanging a worried look with Jughead. “Whose phone are you calling from?”

“Promise me you’re not gonna freak out,” her sister repeats.

“Not when you keep saying that,” Betty replies, starting to get genuinely scared.

“We had to leave town,” Polly says quietly, after a long pause. “I can’t tell you where I am right now. But you know how I told you Jason has been acting really weird lately? Well—he—” Betty’s breath catches in her throat, her mind racing. “—He said it’s not safe for us in Riverdale right now. Not anymore.”

“Polly, what are you saying?” Betty breathes, her heart slamming against her chest. “What—where are you?”

“I told you, I can’t tell you where I am right now. I don’t know much, but…I saw him last night, and he seemed really scared, Betty. I think he’s messed up in something bad.”

“Then what the hell are you doing running away with him?” Betty all but yells into the phone. Next to her, Jughead’s eyes bulge. “Polly, what if—”

“I told you not to freak out,” Polly says, her voice turning very firm. “I trust him. I love him. This is the right thing to do for us, for our babies. This is how we’ll all be together.”

“How can you know that, Polly? How can you do this when you were saying a few days ago how weird he was being?” Betty demands shrilly, because all she can think about is _drugs_ and Jason’s empty eyes and sirens blaring in her ears and Moose Mason dead on the floor.

“Because. I trust him. And he’s really afraid of something, Betty. Not just for himself, but for me, and the babies,” her sister says, tone still unyielding. She pauses. “Do you remember when Cheryl threw that Vixen party before school started?”

Her mind is still running rampant with fear and worry for her sister, so it takes a moment for her to catch up to the change of subject. “What? Yeah, I guess. But, Polly—”

“I already knew I was late by then and didn’t want to be around all the pot everyone was smoking. I went outside the house to get some air. I was wandering around in the dark and ended up by the Blossom barn. I didn’t even go in, but Cheryl found me and totally freaked out. She started screaming at me and telling me I couldn’t be there, saying all this terrible stuff, and that if I wasn’t careful I was gonna get kicked off the squad for gaining too much weight.”

“That’s why you haven’t talked to her all semester?”

“I’ve never her seen her act so cruel, Betty. It was scary. It made me think that Jason was telling the truth, that we needed to run. I don’t know, I—”

But Betty still can’t wrap her heads around what her sister said earlier, especially since she had just been theorizing that it was Jason Blossom who dealt the drugs that killed Moose Mason.

Him begging Polly to run away with him all but confirms he’s trying to flee town before it gets back to him. It about proves his guilt.

“Polly, you need to know something—”

“I have to go,” Polly interrupts, almost deliberately. “Tell Mom you don’t know anything. I’ll try to call her tomorrow night. I love you. I’ll talk to you soon, I promise.”

 _No, no, no—_ “Polly, _wait_ —”

But the line is already dead.

.

.

.

Betty throws the phone down on her jacket and lets out a frustrated screech. “She’s being so stupid!” She shrieks, her hands in the air. Jughead immediately rushes to her side, his hands cradling her shoulders in a soothing gesture.

“Slow down, Betts, what happened? What’s going on? Where’s your sister?”

“She won’t tell me!” Betty cries, her voice cracking. “She ran away with him! She’s literally on the lam with Jason! And she’s pregnant!”

Jughead’s instinctual reaction does nothing to calm her, as his eyes widen and his lips take a dark twist. “Shit.”

“Maybe Jason didn’t mean for any of this to happen,” she says in a breath, more to herself than anything, “Maybe he’s a good person who just got in too deep. But now he’s pulling Polly down with him. I—we—need to stop this, Juggie, now!”

He nods quickly, wrapping her deeper in his arms to keep her from hyperventilating. “Okay, okay. What do we do?”

She shakes her head rapidly with distress, lost for words, and he starts making calming shushing noises. The familiar rumblings of a panic attack flash across her chest. “Count backwards from ten,” he says softly, but urgently. “It helps. Trust me.”

 _10…_ Her heart hammers in her ears and she tries to focus on steadying her breaths. 9… His hands move to grip her own. _8, 7…_ She knows he’s trying to keep her nails from digging into her skin.

 _6, 5…_ She stares off blankly over Jughead’s shoulder. _4, 3…_ She takes a long, shaky breath.

 _2…_ Jughead’s fingers move to massage at her neck.

 _1…_ She knows what she needs to do.

Betty sniffs, and rubs at her eyes. She feels her face harden. “We need to go to the Blossom barn.”

Jughead swallows. “Okay. Why?”

“Polly said that she was just standing outside of it and Cheryl found her and got really upset. Told her she couldn’t go in there and was acting really strangely. Cheryl loves Jason more than anything—if the barn has anything to do with the drugs, she’d protect it for him. I think we need to look there.”

“Wait, we need to think about this,” Jughead says, shaking his head. “If we’re about to walk into a drug den—”

“No, we need _evidence_ , Juggie,” Betty snaps, tightening on her ponytail. “You were right. You can’t go back to the station without proof. I won’t be able to convince Polly to get away from this without it either. It’s already after midnight. By the time we get to the Blossom property, it’ll be late enough that no one will be awake. They might’ve not realized Jason is gone yet, but we don’t know how deep this goes and we might lose our window. If we’re going to go, we need to do it now.”

But Jughead doesn’t look entirely convinced. “This is dangerous, Betty.”

“I’m going with or without you,” she decides, putting her hands on her hips.

He stares at her, and then runs a hand down his face with something like wilted resignation. “You might literally be the death of me, Cooper. But you’re right. Let’s go.”

.

.

.

Luckily, Jughead’s motorcycle is parked not from school. He hadn’t ridden it to Archie’s house earlier because he didn’t want to walk all the way back from Pop’s, so it’s only about ten minutes away. When they reach it, Jughead reaches into the back storage and retrieves a spare helmet for her. “I grabbed it this morning, just in case,” he explains, mounting the bike.

She hesitates, and he notices. “I’ve never been on one of these,” she says, briefly losing her edge.

Jughead fiddles with a smile. “I won’t let anything happen to you,” he says solemnly, as if his words seem to mean something else entirely.

“I know,” she nods, also saying something much deeper. And then Betty Cooper, a girl raised of pink and pastel, swings her leg over the dark motorcycle.

“Hold on tight,” Jughead advises, as she’s pulling on her helmet. She wraps her arms tightly around his stomach. He flips down his visor, kicks off the ground, and she feels the motorcycle revving deep in her gut. Her whole body vibrates with the power of the engine and then they tear off into the black night.

Abstractly, she’s always understood the appeal of a motorcycle. There’s something uniquely thrilling about it in a way that other grasps at adrenaline can’t quite replicate. The wind whisks rapidly around them, filling up her jacket with rippling pockets of air and whispering the rules of the road in her ears. It roars like some kind of living beast beneath them, like perhaps it has a mind of it’s own that could turn on them at any moment.

It’s also absolutely _freezing_ , Betty notes, completely appreciating the practicality of a thick leather jacket when there’s nothing but the stars between you and the blurring road. By the time they reach the outskirts of the Blossom maple trees, she has to consciously keep her teeth from chattering.

He pulls off the path and rumbles into a small clearing. “We should walk from here, if we’re going for even the tiniest bit of stealth,” Jughead says, cutting the engine. He twists on his seat to look at her, grinning broadly despite himself. “What’d you think?”

“Cold,” she admits, chuckling. “And I think my heart is gonna fall out of my chest. But I liked it.”

“You get used to it,” Jughead smirks, helping her out of her helmet. “Thanks for trusting me.” His hands are on her jaw once it’s off, dropping a quick kiss onto her lips.

She’s about to deepen it, because honestly making out on the back of his bike is something of a fantasy she’s been filing away for a couple weeks now, but then she remembers the whole point of the midnight ride. She slides off the motorcycle while Jughead procures a flashlight from the same storage bin on the back. He hands it to her, and uses his phone for his own light.

Together, they make their way through the wood, and Betty’s about to announce that it’s possible they might be lost when she spots the Blossom barn across a clearing. They sneak towards it as quietly as possible, and Jughead heaves the big rolling door open just enough for them to steal away inside.

“Now what?” Jughead breathes, shining his phone light over the room. It’s a musty space and smells of hay and wood, and absolutely covered wall to wall with big wooden barrels.

“Now we start looking,” Betty says firmly, throwing her flashlight into the corners.

Jughead squats down, and taps at a nearby barrel with his ear to the drum. “Sounds like there’s liquid in this, Betts,” he says with a sigh. “I think this is actually just a creepy barn full of maple syrup.”

“Well, this isn’t a cartoon, Juggie, they’re not gonna have boxes labeled ‘top secret drugs’ everywhere. Keep looking.”

They move around silently, tapping against each of the barrels within reach. Suddenly, Jughead freezes. “Wait, this one. Sounds like something rattling in there.”

Betty rushes over. “How do we get it open?” She gives him a once over. “Do you…have something on you?”

Jughead straightens up, fixing her with a look of faux offense. “You know, despite the whole biker gang stereotype, I don’t actually carry a crowbar on my person at all times,” he says with a roll of his eyes.

“I didn’t mean—”

“Wait,” he says, and he shuffles back a few feet. “Step back. I have an idea.”

And then he rushes forward and swings his foot into the barrel. It fractures, and he keeps kicking at it until it’s nothing but splinters and scattered wood. Something orange glitters at them beyond the cracks.

Betty looks at Jughead, impressed. He gives a bashful sort of shrug. “Steel-toed boots,” he says, before giving it one last kick. A mountain of plastic comes pouring out, spilling out over their feet.

She stares at the floor and gasps. She crouches down and runs her hands over the pile of—

“Juggie, these are pill bottles,” she says quietly, grasping one between her fingers. She holds the cylindrical orange tube up to him. “Empty prescription bottles.”

“Holy shit,” Jughead says, covering his mouth with his hand. “ _Holy shit,_ we were right. Jason is the one selling the drugs.”

For a moment, they just stare at each other, breathing heavily. Then Jughead starts taking frantic pictures with his phone while Betty grabs a few bottles with the sleeve of her jacket and stuffs them into her pocket. “We should get out of here. Go straight to the Feds. We have proof now, Juggie.”

But he remains silent, still staring at the river of little orange bottles. “This isn’t proof of anything, Betts. Technically, they’re just bottles, right?”

“It’s the start we needed. I mean, I bet they don’t keep the drugs with the pills; that would be too easy. But this is enough to take to the Feds,” she replies, and seemingly despite himself, Jughead nods in agreement. They lace their fingers together and head for the door, closing it quietly behind them best they can. They’re almost to the trees when—

_CRACK!_

The sound of a gunshot barrels through the wind overhead. Jughead stumbles into Betty in shock, his head whipping around behind them. “Was that a gun?” He hisses, eyes wide with panic.

_CRACK! CRACK!_

“Someone’s definitely shooting at us—go, _go!”_ Betty yells, pushing on Jughead’s shoulders.

They break for the woods, the sound of bullets whizzing around them like glass shattering against a wall. When they hit the trees, they duck behind the old maples to catch their breath. Jughead is visibly shaking. “Are—are you okay? You didn’t…you weren’t...”

“I’m okay,” Betty pants. “You?” Jughead nods quickly. She cranes her neck around the tree and lets out a shuddered gasp. Jughead glances at her and then, with measured breaths, follows her gaze.

Cheryl Blossom is standing at the edge of the field.

She cocks the hunting rifle in her hands and shoots it straight into the air. Birds shriek overhead, scattering into a starless sky like some sort of breathing, mutable shadow swooping lowly over them.

Cheryl’s hair is bright against the darkness and whips around her face with a burning rage, as red and as furious as the flames of hell, come to collect on their souls.

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**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this took so long!! i was traveling AND got bitten by another muse. 
> 
> and!! gasp!! 
> 
> the comments mean so much to me, so please drop me a review and let me know what you thought! 
> 
> this is the intersection of a lot of plot and i've been working my way to this point for a while (actually wrote that last scene in the first few days of this fic!). very excited to get to some reveals.


	16. Chapter 16

Gunshot piercing the sky once more, they start running again and don’t stop until they’ve reached the clearing where Jughead stashed his bike. Betty is used to the burn of a sprint on her legs, but Jughead clearly isn’t; he wheezes loudly, struggling to catch his breath, completely doubled over with his hands on his knees.

“I knew that girl was crazy,” Jughead says through gulps of air. “But I never knew she was crazy-with-a- _gun_ -crazy!”

They’ve stopped running, but her thoughts haven’t, and Betty grabs for his shoulder, shaking it as reality catches up to her. “It’s Cheryl,” she says, tremulously but gathering momentum. Her eyes widen, still panting. “Cheryl is the one dealing the drugs. Oh my god. It was never Jason.”

He stares at her, the realization working plainly across his face until his mouth drops right open. “Holy shit,” Jughead breathes.

She blinks rapidly as it all comes to her. “I mean, it’s perfect. Cheryl makes sure she’s at every major event…and she has the perfect excuse! Building our social brand? What bullshit!” She throws her hands into the air. “I can’t believe I fell for that! I—I _saw_ her the night of Reggie’s party! She had her hands in Chuck’s pockets, I bet she was slipping him drugs. Damn it!” Betty kicks forcefully at a couple of stray twigs, which jump only a pathetic couple of feet, making her anger feel even more futile. “I’m gonna kill her!”

Jughead rushes forward and puts his hands on her shoulders, fingers dipping into her collar soothingly. “Okay, okay, wait, let’s think about this for a second. Christ. We need a plan. We need to get a step ahead of them. Okay, you’re a high-rolling, secret small-town drug dealer and you’ve just been _made,_ what’s the first thing you do?

“Raze the place,” Betty mutters darkly, eyes scraping across his face. “They’re probably destroying all the evidence as we speak. Oh god—and Polly is with one of them! I have to call her, Jughead, I have to—” But anxiety picks up around her chest again, and her imagination is worse to bear. In response, anger curls itself around her shoulders, whispering dark, strangely soothing thoughts of conspiracy and revenge for what the Blossoms have done to this town, to her sister—but then, but then, another voice breaks through, reminding her that _Jason ran away._

 _He ran away from it all,_ Betty thinks again, more clearly this time despite a pounding under her temples, and that would certainly explain the panic Polly described, so maybe…maybe her sister was right to trust him. Maybe all they can do is focus on catching the rest of the Blossoms first. 

Meanwhile, clearly working through his own thoughts, Jughead licks his lips and spins in a semi circle, his hands frustrated through his black hair. “Okay. I can’t believe I’m the one who’s saying this, but we gotta go to the police. Like, now. I bet they know we were in the barn, what we saw—we should go now. That’s our only option, Betty.”

“No,” Betty says, shaking her head. Her eyes briefly close. There’s only one other person she trusts right now. “Not the police. It’s the _Blossoms,_ Jug. They run this town, and we should assume that applies to law enforcement. So…”

Jughead rubs at his chin. “So…we need an outsider.”

Betty nods again, but more to herself, assuring herself this is their best—their only play. “We’re going to Agent Drew.”

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Of course, it’s _finding him_ that’s all the more difficult.

It’s late, probably nearing two in the morning by now, and the likelihood that he’s in bed and asleep by now is strong, and he could be staying at any one of the local hotels, and there isn’t time to start calling around or pounding on doors in the dead hour. They reason that they could go to the police station anyway, say they’re looking for him, but that might raise plenty of alarm bells on its own, thus defeating the point and bringing them right back to the original problem.

“I mean, there’s gotta be like, a hotline we can call. Or a directory? Fuck it, where’s Big Brother when you need him?” Jughead growls, gesticulating around the air of a thought, his phone already out in one of his hands. He glares at it, as if this is the fault of the little device, and holds it up to his lips. “Hello? _Hello?_ I know you’re monitoring my phone for data mining, but this is the one time I need you to use your powers for good instead of—”

Betty pulls his arms down, half because he’s starting to get a demented look in his eye, and half because yelling at his phone in the middle of a clearing in the woods is going to get them absolutely nowhere. “Jughead, stop, now is not the time for your conspiracy theor…” But she catches herself, now staring at his phone too.

And like a shock of lightning, it occurs to her. How could she have been so stupid as to forget they had it all along? She reaches forward, his eyes widening as they watch her dig through the breast pocket of his jacket until she pulls out the business card Agent Drew had given her, what feels like eons ago.

His head looks like it’s about to spin off his shoulders, likely with a deeper level X-file than they have time for. “What the—”

“I put it there,” she explains distractedly, and grabbing his phone out of his hands. Fingers shaking, perhaps still with fear and adrenaline or perhaps the cold, she dials the number on the business card, breath catching as she’s greeted by dial tone.

And then, a click.

“Agent Charles Drew,” comes the clipped but no less comfortingly familiar voice, and Betty’s whole body sags with relief.

“Agent Drew, this is Betty Cooper. I have—have—information you need. It’s about Moose Mason and the fentanyl. We need to talk in person, where are you?”

There’s a brief pause over the line. “I’m still at the station,” he replies, sounding confused but alert. “I’ve set up my temporary office in the interrogation room. But Betty, what’s going on? Are you in trouble?”

“You need to send agents to Thornhill, _now,_ but we’re coming to you, okay? I’ll explain everything in person,” she says, brain firing too many signals to keep her voice steady. “We’ll see you soon.”

Agent Drew hardly gets out a startled _“Thornhill?”_ before she hangs up and shoves the phone into Jughead’s chest. “Okay, we’re going to the station,” she says, rushing over to the motorcycle and swinging an impatient leg over the side of it.

Jughead gapes. “But—”

“He’s still there! Come on, we need to go!”

Seeming to shake himself out of his reverie of shock, Jughead nods abruptly and rushes towards the bike, and together, once more and against a ticking clock, they tear off once more into the cold night in pursuit of justice.

 

They drive on as fast as the bike will push, rippling down past the woods of Thornhill, past Pop’s, past the main drag of town, past everything until they reach the police station, dimly lit but clearly awake in the early morning hour. Jughead pulls to a haphazard stop in front, and they both practically throw their helmets onto the handlebars before running up the steps to the station and into the entrance, ignoring the delayed but no less indignant cries of _“hey, wait!”_ from the attendant behind the glass.

“Interrogation is this way,” Jughead cries, abruptly turning down a long hallway, his sneakers skidding across the linoleum. Betty almost forgets how he knows that, but there isn’t time to ruminate on that frustration. 

Together, they burst through the door of the room, panting and breathless once more, to the utter and plain shock from Agent Drew, who is seated at the table, surrounded by a green lamp and a sea of files and stacks of paper, a pen paused in his hand, as if transcribing some kind of statement.

“Agent Drew,” Betty says, without preamble. “We have something we have to tell you.”

His eyebrows raise high across his brow, and his expression is, at once, guarded and unreadable. “I expect that you do. What do you know, Miss Cooper?”

From the shadows, a figure moves. Slithers into the light like a cat in the grass. All Betty sees is _red._

Cheryl Blossom pushes off the wall.

“Yes, Betty, tell us. What _do_ you know?”

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Betty audibly gasps and Jughead instinctively steps in front of her, but Betty catches his hand and grips it tight, pulling herself forward. They’ll stand together or not at all. “What the hell are you doing here?” Betty seethes, furiously trying to keep an even keel to her voice.

“I’ve got a lot more reason to be here than you two idiots, that’s for sure,” Cheryl says icily, unblinking and crossing her arms, having the gall to look halfway to boredom.

“You gotta be kidding me,” Jughead says lowly, and with a half-deranged laugh, like every conspiratorial thought he’s ever had is being confirmed.

“You can’t listen to a thing she says, Agent Drew,” Betty says hurriedly, suddenly remembering where they are and rapidly spinning to face the FBI agent. “She’s selling the drugs! She’s the one behind it all. Her and that whole psycho family!”

Agent Drew runs his tongue along the top of his teeth, surveying Betty carefully, as if perhaps carefully choosing his words. “Yes, thank you, Miss Cooper. I’m aware,” he says eventually, exhaling lightly and leaning forward over his desk, fingers laced tightly.

“You’re—you…” But the words die on Betty’s tongue, and she blinks at him, then to Cheryl, and on to Jughead, whose face mirrors the exact feeling thriving in her chest. She stares at Jughead for a long moment, and then looks back at Agent Drew. “What?”

“I’m aware. Cheryl Blossom is, as of late, my informant,” Agent Drew repeats, with the ghost of a small smile that promptly disappears as the visage of calm is replaced by a self-deprecating shake of the head. “Christ. I don’t know why I keep telling you these things.”

“She’s got one of those faces,” Jughead mutters, and Betty chooses to ignore it in favor of gaping at Agent Drew. Cheryl Blossom is…working with the FBI? Is that even legal? Then again, she could very well already be eighteen, being a senior. But that doesn’t mean she’d just turn on her family out of nowhere, especially if—

Cheryl clears her throat, as pointed as her expression. “Yes, take it all in, Tweedle Dee,” she snaps, giving Betty a harsh once over. “Which is _why_ I rushed over here as soon as I caught you and Tweedle Dustbin breaking into the barn—to clean up _your_ mess.”

Betty scoffs, far past incredulous, her eyes nearly bulging out of her head. “Clean up our mess? You tried to kill us!”

Jughead nods fervently, his lips twisting into a scowl. “Yeah, I’d love to hear how _shooting at us_ was supposed to be helping us.”

Cheryl rolls her eyes. “Oh, for the love of Athena, don’t flatter yourself. Ten years of archery lessons, on top of the fact that I’ve been hunting with my father far longer than you’ve been riding around on your big boy bike? Do you think _I_ don’t know how to make a kill shot? If I’d been actually aiming, you two would be dead! There are cameras all over the property! I had to make it look real. Buy us some time. My father currently thinks I’m out covering my tracks after _dealing_ with you two!”

Betty and Jughead both remain silent for a long moment, and then, with a mutual, fleeting look, appear to reach a silent agreement, though one no less bewildered. “I’m sorry, what is going on?” Betty asks blankly, hands in the air in front of her.

“After the little tête-à-tête in the school corridor between Reggie Mantle and Grease Lightening over here, Jason was a mess,” Cheryl begins, her tone still terse and tight. “He was blaming himself for what happened to Moose, for not stopping our father before someone got hurt.”

“People have been getting hurt all year,” Jughead interjects forcefully, his brow forming a deep valley. “There have been overdoses across three counties piling up into statistics. People only started _caring_ when it was a football player.”

Owlishly, Cheryl’s head swivels towards him, and something genuinely apologetic flickers across her face. “Well, I can’t disagree with that,” she says, in a softer tone, and more under her breath. She inhales through her nose, and lifts up her neck. “But, as I was saying. Jason was on the brink of a meltdown, panicked like I’d never seen him, and I knew he was going to do something stupid that would probably get himself killed. And something had to be done before he got to that point. So, we made a plan. He and Polly were going to get out of town, far out of our father’s reach, and then I was going to bring him down, unrepentant,” she says, her lips curling around the last word ferociously.

“We were right, then,” Betty says, looking again at Jughead. She just needs to hear it, needs to know this all hasn’t been for nothing. “The Blossoms were the ones selling the drugs?”

He clears his throat and steps forward. “Yeah, hold on, I’m gonna need a recap. How in the hell did the Blossoms, of _maple syrup lore,_ ” he says, slowly, his tone dripping, “become drug king pins?

She sighs. “Are you really that naïve? Our stock portfolio, as it were, has been diversified since prohibition. I’m not claiming glamour in it, but wherever there is puritanical law, there is greed to fluff it back out. As the demand grew, so did the business. It became...” Cheryl’s sneering visage ripples across the surface, and she seems to lose the will to monologue. “Whatever the hell agent of chaos it is now. _Hence my attempts to stop it,”_ she adds, punctuating each word sharply and glaring daggers at the both of them. 

“But why you?” Betty asks, before she can think better of it. “I mean, based on everything Polly’s told me about your family and Jason, he…”

“Was the golden child, me the scorn?” Cheryl finishes, raising her eyebrows. “Apt as ever, dear Betty. Unfortunately, fate pulled a different string. When Jason and I were twelve, he went out for a ride on his bicycle. It was late spring, but some of the roads still had ice. He saw a couple of guys and kids on motorcycles goofing off and rode closer.”

She pauses, giving Jughead’s leather jacket an obvious once over. “One of the bikers lost control and nearly drove straight into Jason. He veered off the road and rolled down about thirty feet of a hillside. He broke three ribs and his leg and almost died.”

“I was there,” Jughead says, blinking as he seems to go briefly back in time. “I remember that. That was my dad and his friend, showing me how to ride. Raven was the one who lost control. We…brought him to the hospital.”

“Yes, I was about to get to the part where those deviants unceremoniously dumped him on the hospital steps, thank you,” Cheryl snaps, her eyes flashing.

Betty and Jughead exchange glances; Cheryl takes a steadying inhale.

“He was in the hospital for several days. Spoiler alert: he survived, of course, but the problem was that the board of Daddy’s company was in town. Jason was expected to be presented as the family heir and sit in on his first meeting. But he couldn’t show up on crutches and covered in bruises, barely conscious through the morphine; it would send the wrong kind of message about the strength of Daddy’s leadership and the future of the business.”

A punishing sort of smile twitches on Cheryl’s face. “So they had no choice. Butterfly effect. Instead it was me who went. Instead, I was the heir.”

She begins to pace, the clicking of her venomous red heels echoing off the cement walls of the room, airing up for what appears to be a super-villain worthy monologue. “And with that, my life changed overnight. They couldn’t treat me like a wall ornament anymore, or something to be pulled out of the attic once a year for holidays. _They_ needed _me_ now,” Cheryl spits, a vindicated, wild sort of look in her eye.

“Mother still loathes me, of course, but I finally understood the phrase ‘Daddy’s little girl.’ He was…kinder. Respected me. I got whatever I wanted, as long as I was good,” She adds softly, meeting her reflection in the two-way mirror. She stares into her own eyes with a tilt of her head, something porcelain and eerily dollish about the way she blinks at herself.

“So why the hell did you turn on them? Turn on your whole scheme? I find it kind of hard to believe it was out of the goodness of your heart, because I’ve yet to have proof you even have one,” Jughead drawls skeptically, his eyes narrowed at her.

“Because Moose _died,_ and he wasn’t supposed to. No one was supposed to,” Cheryl hisses sharply, glaring at Jughead through the mirror, her whole face changing, contorting with rage. She spins around so quickly that her hair wraps around her own neck, licking the skin like a burning flame. “Because my father threatened Polly, and then the babies, and then Jason himself. And he meant it. I wasn’t going to let him hurt them.”

Betty’s head turns sharply onto Cheryl. “What do you mean, he threatened Polly?”

Cheryl purses her lips. “I threw a Vixens party late last summer, if you recall. Polly, ever the Cooper goody-goody, went for some air rather than partake. But stumbling around in the dark led her towards the barn. She said she didn’t see anything, but it didn’t matter. As I said, there are security cameras all over that barn. I’ll admit, I…may have handled things a little too extremely with Polly when I found her.”

“She said you freaked out on her and wouldn’t stop screaming,” Betty deadpans, her tone dry despite the intensity of the moment. “And then you were somehow surprised when she wouldn’t take your calls after that.”

 _“Point being,”_ Cheryl says dismissively, rolling her eyes. “Later on, Daddy was going through footage and saw her on camera, stumbling around the barn. And he told me that if I didn’t take care of it, he would.”

“Take…care of it?” Jughead repeats, forehead wrinkling. “Are you being deliberately dramatic or does that mean what I think it means?”

“It’s what it sounds like,” Cheryl sniffs coldly. “I’m morbidly positive Daddy would kill Jason and I to protect the business, never mind a Cooper girl. But I _obviously_ wasn’t going to let him hurt her. She’s my only…Polly is very dear to me. She and Jason are all that I have, and now, with the babies on the way, it was crucial they get far away from all of this while they still could.”

Betty glances at Agent Drew, who nods, almost imperceptibly, as if confirming this to be true, something he’s substantiated before. And in that moment, Betty decides to believe it.

Cheryl exhales, finding her pace again. “About two years ago, the time had come for me to step up in the company. I was expected to be…involved, at least in part. Work for my bread. The board wanted to know how they could expand the business; make it a little flashier, a little younger. And ideally, move away from heroin and crack and all the nasty little paper trails that follow.”

Jughead scoffs disbelievingly. “What, they wanted you to deliver a PowerPoint on millennial drug trends?”

“That’s exactly what they wanted,” Cheryl replies coolly, raising a manicured eyebrow. “And that’s what I gave them. This company would’ve gone to hell in a handbag without me. Then again, I suppose it was still going straight down to Hades either way,” she adds, picking at an invisible spot of lint on her sweater. She then exhales, and continues pacing.

“It was my idea to start selling prescription drugs. They’re smaller, easier to move. Don’t leave a footprint. People feel safer taking it. For our standards, it’s the perfect product. You can’t train dogs to smell for it, but if even you could, they’d go haywire around half the population, with the amount of pills people carry around in this age of pharma-culture. It expanded the client base about ten fold—way beyond tri-county.”

Her tone is strangely blasé, almost, but a hint of pride colors it plainly at the corners, as if a part of her can’t help but gloating over her grand, Draconian plan. She purses her lips against the tugging grin, perhaps for the appearance of Agent Drew alone.

“We had first thought it was Jason dealing the drugs…” Betty muses back, more to herself. Her eyes flick up to Cheryl, who locks eyes with her right back. “But it was you. I knew it was you.”

She rolls her eyes and flips her flaming hair over her shoulder. “Well. It’s called a _red_ herring for a reason,” she says, almost impatiently. “But, yes, in effect, that is true. A select group of loyal Vixens and myself have been doing the high school footwork for the last year. I don’t love what I’ve done, but you don’t know the world I grew up in. You don’t know my parents.” Something small and forgotten glints in her eye, and she quickly looks away. She inhales sharply. “Jason never… Frankly, Jason doesn’t have the stomach for this kind of thing. Things would’ve been worse, if he’d been the one groomed.”

“Drug dealing cheerleaders,” Jughead mutters aloud, scrubbing a hand down his face. “Fuck all.”

“So you were selling the drugs to Chuck, the night of Reggie’s party,” Betty murmurs, her memory tracing and retracing Cheryl’s hands in Chuck’s pockets.

Cheryl is still staring at her, and Betty shivers. There’s something unnervingly unnatural about the fact that she doesn’t seem to need to blink. “Alas, yes. I sold it to Chuck, who appears to have turned it around and sold it to Moose.”

“So what happened?” Jughead asks, glancing briefly at Agent Drew who corroborates this with an incline of his head. Jughead’s arms are still crossed, a furious tick in his jaw. “Moose just took too many pills with too many beers?”

“No,” Agent Drew says in an odd, strained voice. He looks exhausted, Betty realizes. “There was fentanyl in his system at the time of his death, but no Oxycodone.”

“Meaning…” But Betty trails off, her mind whirring as it fills in the blanks.

“ _Meaning,_ Daddy not only started cutting a drug fifty times the strength of morphine into his product, he also stopped putting the _product_ into his product,” Cheryl snaps, blood red nails digging into her own arms with furious restraint. “Like I said, no one was supposed to _die_. It was supposed to just be a little Oxy. I’d heard about the fentanyl overdoses, of course, but Daddy had assured me it was those Greendale Ghoulies putting it out on the streets, and that he’d deal with them. But once I realized it was him, and what he was doing, what he’d _done_ …coupled with the tension regarding Jason’s discomfort with how the food got on his table, and Polly at the barn, I knew it was only a matter of time before things got uglier, fast. So I came here and turned on my father. In exchange for full immunity for Jason, myself, and my Vixens, of course,” she adds, smiling coldly.

And then her nostrils flare, whipping around to face Agent Drew. “And I _had_ it under control, until Shaggy and Velma over here drove the Scooby van straight into the middle of it! Now all the evidence in the barn is probably being destroyed as we speak, and the product is being moved! There’s no telling what he plans to do once he figures out you two morons are alive to tell the tale, let alone here. And he’s got deep pockets in the police force, so we’ll have to count our lucky stars on whether or not any one of his squirrels is working the late shift!”

“Wait, wait,” Jughead says, moving closer towards the three of them, and Betty realizes he’s been hanging back, surveying them with his arms folded and his scowl deeply etched. “If the barn was just one part of the operation, and there’s product now being feverishly moved in the dead of night, why are you both here?” Betty glances at Agent Drew, whose face is tightly contorted as Jughead throws his hands into the air. “Jesus, you should be out stopping it!”

“ _Obviously,_ you partridge. Except I don’t know where the second location is. Daddy was saving information that as a graduation present,” Cheryl all but growls, and Betty isn’t sure who she’s most frustrated with in the moment—Jughead, her own father, or herself.

Betty swallows, dread at her spine. “But didn’t you send agents to Thornhill, after I called? Isn’t that enough, catching them cleaning the barn out? Tampering with evidence?”

Agent Drew is running his tongue along his teeth again, in something of a nervous tick. “No. It was too risky. Even with Cheryl as a witness, everything in the barn was still too circumstantial to make it to court. We needed more, concrete evidence before we moved; if I’d sent agents now, we’d likely blow Cheryl’s cover, and then we’d never get close enough. Without seized product, the case would fall apart instantly.”

“Thus, why we were going to play the _long game,_ until you two ruined everything, practically five minutes into my plan,” Cheryl interjects, still looking imperious. “The barn will be emptied by now, and we have no idea where the rest of the product is. So now we have nothing.”

There’s a long, palpable silence, and guilt slides down Betty’s throat like ice water—how could she have been so impulsive? Blinded by something that could’ve been justice, but could’ve just been as easily fear or anger or helplessness, she’d stormed the wrong Bastille at the wrong time, and almost worse, forced Jughead to be her accomplice, to help her destroy a case that was painstakingly being built by someone who actually knew what they were doing?

She sinks into the chair across from Agent Drew, but can’t look him in the eye. Instead, she buries her face in her hands. “This is all my fault. I’m so sorry,” she says into her palms, her chest stuttering with the tell tale signs of panic again. She wishes she could curl her hands into fists, relieve the stress with the familiar vice, but then she’d have to look at one of them, and that would be worse.

“Don’t be sorry, Betty. I know where this goes next,” Jughead says, wearily, but with reluctant confidence. She drops her hands and twists her neck up at him, and the others follow in suit. But Jughead has eyes only for her, staring at her meaningfully. “It’s Mustang, he’s the last piece of the puzzle, remember?”

“Mustang?” Agent Drew repeats, eyebrows knotted and sitting up straight. “I’ve heard that name before,” he murmurs distractedly, digging through one of his piles for a folder, which he extracts after a moment of shuffling and rifling. He promptly flips open to a printout of Mustang’s mug shot and what appears to be a long list of priors, scanning it thoroughly.

Jughead appears to be steeling himself. “We…think some of the Serpents may be involved. There are warring factions within the gang, and some who wouldn’t care what kind of jobs they’re taking, as long as it got them rich.”

Agent Drew flicks his eyes between the two of them, and then over to Cheryl, who shrugs. “That sounds like the kind of thing Daddy would do with what he thought was a disposable sales force. Like I’ve been saying, the trade goes much bigger than my own little ring.”

“The Serpents aren’t disposable,” Jughead snaps, as if unable to stop himself. “You and your family are the whole reason any of this is even happening, so don’t even—”

“I didn’t say _I_ thought they were disposable. Let’s not clamber for the moral high ground at the midnight hour,” Cheryl snaps back, eyes threatening to roll so far back in her head they might get stuck there. Jughead opens his mouth again, inhaling warningly, but doesn’t get much further than that, interrupted by the sound of Agent Drew’s chair forcefully screeching backwards against the tile.

“Please, please! Both of you.” He stands to his full height, his expression taut, and Betty suddenly not only sees her parents reflected back in his face, but her own. It twitches, and she wonders if he sees it too before his gaze returns to Jughead. “What does this person, this Mustang, have to do with any of this?”

Jughead suddenly looks exhausted. “Because Mustang must handle the product. That’s why he was so angry that I’d been released, after being arrested. And that’s why Sabrina never was. Fuck,” he swears again, appearing as though the conclusion he’s reached visibly pains him. He meets Betty’s eye, as if for support, and exhales. “I think I know where the drugs are.”

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**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so. we're doing this. 
> 
> i'd wanted to trust myself that i would finish this fic all along, but truthfully, i'd lost the muse for this story for a while and just wasn't sure what was going to happen. every time i tried to write, it just wouldn't come. i feel as though i changed a lot as a writer after starting my other fic, heart rise above, and when i looked back on this fic, it just felt so different than the other things i was working on. and i'd never, ever accomplished a successful multi-chapter, so when i started this project, it was not ambitious at all, and thus there's a lot i'm still not satisfied with. 
> 
> but s2 has been such a complete and utter mess, and this story began as a partial speculative fic for the season, that i just wanted to see out the rest of my headcanons for this. and this chapter was always conceived as the culmination of the plot, which i centered around the singular decision of FP choosing for jughead to go to school on the southside. 
> 
> this story is about what the butterfly effect would have on canon; jughead growing up with the serpents, he'd learn to ride younger, and that led to jason's accident, which led to cheryl as the one being groomed. 
> 
> (it's funny though, because as this fic was largely speculative for s2, it was interesting to see that toni ended up being nearly just as i'd envisioned sabrina in this role, alice connection notwithstanding) 
> 
> anyway. pretty, pretty please: if you're still reading this fic, let me know. drop me a review! it'd mean a lot, especially since a large part of the reason this went as a WIP for so long is because i was so nervous about reapproaching it. but. we're in the final stretch now, and i promise, i'm going to finish this story.


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